Lessons Learned
by ardavenport
Summary: The Enterprise-D encounters a trio who are the same species as Gem, from the original series episode, 'The Empath'. They interact in very interesting ways with the crew. And Captain Picard is forced to get in touch with his feelings.
1. Chapter 1

**LESSONS LEARNED**

by ardavenport

**

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o o o Part 1**

This new ship was big. With nothing by which to reference its size in the void of space and stars, they could not fathom its true greatness when they first saw it. Now they knew it was immense compared with their small, adopted craft. Its blue energy now entrapped them.

And within its strange shape, many people lived, all of them curiously unaware of them, totally insensitive to their presence. But they were still too far away to truly perceive any single individual's characteristics from such a large group.

She put her hand in that of her Dearest-Most Follower and hugged her to her side. Her Yearning-Most Follower put his arm around her waist while they watched a glowing opening in the new ship grow large in the window.

**

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"Tractor beam off," Data announced. Sitting in the command chair, Picard crossed his legs and watched the back of the android's head turn from side to side at the forward Ops station. "Docking procedure complete. Docking bay pressurizing."

"Proceed on our original heading," Picard ordered. It had been an easy catch. At first, it hadn't appeared that it would be. The mysterious ship had answered none of their hails, though it transmitted an uninterrupted signal that their computer interpreted as a distress. It had sped on toward Federation space at a steady warp 4.3 despite what course the _Enterprise_ set. But as soon as they'd snared it with their tractor beams her engines had shut down and it had quietly allowed itself to be taken.

With the two secondary command seats empty to either side of him, Picard waited for Commander Riker's report on just who their new guests were.

**

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William Riker looked down at Deanna Troi carefully. She twitched and rolled her shoulders as if her clothes didn't quite fit right. Her long, curly black hair swayed behind her as she moved her head, her eyes half closed, her attention focused inward upon senses that Riker didn't share.

"Do you sense something new?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered quickly, "They're aware of us."

"Are they telepathic?"

"No, I don't think so," she replied uncertainly, her response hesitant.

"Empathic?"

She looked up, surprised, suddenly realizing the obvious. "Yes...they are!"

"Docking bay pressurized," Lieutenant Worf announced. Warily he stood next to the first officer. He trusted Counselor Troi's assessment that the occupants of the unknown ship were not a threat, but it was never a good idea for a warrior to let his guard down.

Riker pressed the door release on the control panel on the wall next to the portal and gestured for them to proceed. "Shall we?"

They entered. The ship sat quietly on the deck of the spacious hanger. Sleek and coated with a shiny silver, it reflected the room lights back at them. They saw fractured images of themselves in it's faceted hull as they approached. It looked fast and dart-like, though their technical assessment had estimated that it wouldn't go any faster than warp 5.

It's side split and a door opened out and upward. A staired ramp swung down to the deck.

Worf moved away from Commander Riker and Counselor Troi. At the slightest provocation, he would be ready with a counter-attack. Humanoids with short hair on top of their heads, pale tan skin, slender arms and bodies, exited the ship. They were two females and a male; they moved slowly, gracefully, as if they were tasting the air with their bodies. The three _Enterprise_ officers advanced. The three aliens took cautious steps toward them in return.

"Hello," Deanna Troi spoke, her arms extended in greeting.

The taller female approached. Riker admiringly noted her elegantly long and shapely legs and torso, clad in a close fitting iridescent sea-green body suit that covered her from neck to toes, with exception of her bare arms. A whole head taller than Troi, her hair was dark brown with a deep greenish tint to it that matched her eyes. She briefly made eye contact with the commander before her attention focused on Troi; greeting, approval, welcome. Riker felt that he could read her thoughts just from that brief, expressive glance.

She raised her hands, her fingertips extended. Troi did the same. Their hands touched.

"Yes," Troi replied happily. "Yes, we want to know who you are." The alien's fingers, barely touching Troi, slid down the counselor's arms and back up again. "We like you, too."

The male extended his hand to the counselor. As with the taller female, the Betazoid could sense his presence, as real and as solid as his physical form. He wore silver boots and a silky, shiny black, long-sleeved short tunic, belted at the waist with a silver cord. His long legs were muscular and hairless, like a runner. He looked down at her with wonder that radiated to Troi like sunlight. His hair was short and mostly gray with a lingering trace of light brown in places and cut evenly at the bangs. He appeared older and was a few centimeters taller than Riker or Worf, but he still looked at least ten kilograms lighter than either the broad-chested commander and Klingon.

His hand darted forward to Troi's silver and gold communicator near the low collar of her blue dress. Worf tensed when he saw the sudden move, but the male did nothing more than touch the device. His brown eyes shone like an explorer having discovered a new civilization. As far as they knew, that was exactly what he was.

The second female was the shyest of the three. She seemed to hide in her pink and orange, sparkling caftan and she stayed close to the first female's side. Troi sensed her apprehension, her intense desire to leave this place of unknowns and return home. The counselor could just perceive an impression of a green planet and a cozy courtyard surrounded by the homes and apartments of friends and family. She appeared to be barely out of adolescence, her face round and youthful, her hair a straight, plain, mousy brown. She was young enough to make Riker wonder where her parents might be; neither of the other two looked even remotely like they might be related to her. Riker smiled down at her, trying to be reassuring, but any gesture at all from any of the _Enterprise_ people seemed to just increase her fearfulness. Her pale brown eyes stared most warily at Worf.

Riker stepped forward. The meeting appeared to be going well except that all the spoken communication was coming from Troi and not being returned. Their guests were quite expressive and welcoming, but they hadn't uttered a sound.

Riker tapped his communicator. "Riker to Picard."

"Picard here."

"We've met the occupants of the ship. They're humanoids and they seem friendly enough, but not very talkative."

"Explain."

"They don't appear to use any form of verbal communication. Counselor Troi says that they're empathic, but we haven't been able to exchange anything more than good intentions."

"How many are there?"

"Three, sir, that we've seen so far." Worf, already at the open door to the ship, turned back to him and shook his head. The interior the commander could see was lit with gentle blue lighting and hung with shimmering curtains, but nothing moved within.

"I'll expect a report in half-an-hour. Picard out." Riker signed off. Worf was already calling for an engineering team to scan the ship.

The taller female glanced Riker's way looking closely at him for the first time. She smiled.

**

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These people were kind. She lay quietly while the Red-Haired One waved her devices over her and then sat up when she was bidden to. The actions of this strange woman meant nothing to her save that they were purposeful. She did these things often.

When the Red-Haired One laid her instruments aside she reached out and grasped this purposeful woman's blue-sleeved wrist. As delicate and pale as her own, the palm warmed her as she cupped it with her other hand. The alien woman stared back with wide, surprised, blue eyes that matched the coat she wore. She stroked the hand she held and raised it to her face. She gently rubbed the warm, soft skin of the back of the hand next to her cheek. Strange fluids pulsed within bone and flesh, similar to her own, but of a flavor she had never imagined before. But still no response radiated from the Red-Haired One. She remained as unaware of the depth of her touch as the body's tiny cells were of the true purpose of their living.

She could see that this woman was rarely touched in such a way. It seemed sad, but none of these people touched each other physically, not even casually. Even the Darkest-Most-Eyes One stayed apart from her comrades like a stranger.

Next to her, her Dearest-Most Follower took her lead. Her small hand cautiously reached up to touch the Red-Haired One's face, her long pink and orange sleeve falling back from her forearm as she did so. Subtle vibrations from her Dearest-Most Follower reached past the outer flesh to the cells of thought and returned unanswered. Unease fluttered within the Red-Haired One, but she did not move away; she wished to flee, but stayed. Surprise, an initial revulsion at their touch, a little fear and curiosity rivaled within the Red-Haired One and held her in place. Disquiet flowed from her Dearest-Most Follower. She, as well, did not like the unhealthy conflicts within this strange woman's thoughts.

She released the hand and bade her Dearest-Most Follower to withdraw so this woman could retreat gracefully. Her Dearest-Most Follower, standing next to the high table she sat on, touched her to diminish the empty feeling that remained after touching the other.

Her Yearning-Most Follower, still lost in the newness of this place, hadn't noticed the exchange as he examined the lighted walls. The legends had come true for him. They had found the Others, the Others who had first known the Old Ones. And though these could not be the same individuals from the legends, they had the same feel as that from the old memories.

At the door, the Hair-Faced One smiled toward her. He was very beautiful. She had never seen a man with hair growing on his face before and she found it pleasingly exotic. And he liked her. What he did not express with his touch, he showed with his pale, blue eyes.

He had entered with a Smooth-Headed One, who wore red and black clothing like the Hair-Faced One. He had a smooth, round, shiny head with very closely trimmed gray hair on the sides and he stood straight; he had walked in before the Hair-Faced One as if he expected the taller and broader male to always be behind him.

The Red-Haired One and the Darkest-Most-Eyes One went to them and they exchanged sounds.

**

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A small smile curled Picard's lips.

"Getting along well with your patients, Doctor?"

Doctor Crusher smiled wryly back at him. "They're very demonstrative." Still sitting on the examination table, the taller female now held hands with the smaller woman in the caftan. The male scrutinized the readouts of the wall monitors. He didn't look like he understood any of it, but what he saw made him happy, like a gleeful child staring at the bright lights of a Christmas tree. He slowly sidestepped along the wall toward them, a nurse watching, following behind. At first, there had been a problem with him touching the instrumentation, but some tactful but firm body language had communicated that he shouldn't. Now he discreetly kept his hands behind his back while he peered at the lighted black panels.

"Have you identified them?" Picard got back to business.

"No, but we're still checking. They're definitely not any species I've ever seen before."

"Have you determined why they don't speak?"

"Yes. They don't have any vocal cords, not even vestibules. And it looks as if it's a natural condition for their species. They communicate entirely through touch and body language."

"Yes, I can see that." Picard frowned sideways at his first officer. The green-suited female seemed to be admiring Commander Riker, and he wasn't doing a thing to discourage her.

Riker shrugged and Picard checked his irritation. Riker was a bit demonstrative himself, but he'd never let it interfere with his duties. Well, almost never. But even so, unless it affected their performance, Picard firmly felt that his fellow officers' private inclinations were none of his business.

Riker started. Picard glimpsed a movement out the corner of his eye. He turned to find the male looming next to him, his fingers descending on him. He started, stepping back and bumping into Riker.

The male withdrew, his expression one of surprise and rejection.

"Um, I think it would be best if you allowed him to touch you. Physical contact seems to be very important to them." He glanced at Counselor Troi, but if she found his discomfit amusing she wasn't showing it. He knew that she knew perfectly well that he was very protective of his personal space. Riker was straining to keep a straight face, but Doctor Crusher's expression was openly curious, as if she were hoping that the alien might find something.

In true diplomatic style Picard stepped forward. After a moment the male extended his hand again. His bald scalp seemed to fascinate the male as he lightly touched its smooth curvature. Picard felt his skin tingle slightly under those questing fingers. Tight-lipped, he rigidly held his ground while the male held his hands to his cheeks and then ran his fingers down to his chin, his throat until his palms rested on his chest.

During the entire experience Picard was surprised to not feel the slightest effect to his mind at all. He'd expected to feel some kind of mental contact, but there was nothing outside of the faint physical sensation.

The male lowered his hands and smiled benignly down at him as if bestowing some sort of approval. Riker grinned, but a well aimed captain's glare took care of his display of amusement. Doctor Crusher's smile stayed where it was. Her blue eyes narrowed with the meaningful hint that she knew him far too well to be intimidated and that added to his annoyance. But her playful expression was also reassuring somehow, that she understood how he felt.

"Have you found anything out about the body you found in the ship?"

Crusher gave him a 'follow me' gesture. They left the room and their three visitors to the nurse and med-techs.

"We haven't identified the body yet either," she told them as she led them down the hall, past her office.

"Do you know what the cause of death was?" Picard asked as they stepped through a door to a small lab room. A covered body lay on a single examination table. Doctors Selar and Khutinagingi studied the readings from an array of medical scanners nearby.

"Well, on a conservative guess," she delicately pulled the edge of the shiny sheet back, "I'd say it was old age."

The remains of the being before them were wizened and gray with age. The wrinkled skin about its thin lips and eyes puckered painfully, the high, straight forehead and hairless skull cracked and ancient.

"Are you sure?"

"That's what we've gotten from the preliminary autopsy. I'd say he, it was a male, was about 350 to 400 years old and seems to have simply reached the end of his natural life span. There's no evidence of disease or injury, but there is considerable cellular deterioration that is consistent with aging in humanoids.

The intercom signalled.

"Data to Picard."

"Picard here."

"I believe I have identified the alien ship and its occupants from Starfleet records."

Picard nodded. "Very good. Relay your information to Doctor Crusher and Commander LaForge. I want a meeting with all senior staff in the observation lounge in thirty minutes."

**

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o o o End Part 1**


	2. Chapter 2

**LESSONS LEARNED**

by ardavenport

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o o o Part 2**

Thirty minutes later they gathered at the curved conference room table. The stars whizzed by the large view port windows. Picard sat at the head of the table, Riker, Data and LaForge to his right, Troi, Worf and Crusher to his left. After a nod from Picard, Data began the briefing.

"The deceased humanoid is identified as a Vian from the Minaran star system."

Picard sat forward. "Minara? But that star went nova a hundred years ago," he asked, puzzled. "All its planets were destroyed."

Data nodded. "Yes, sir, but it is known that the Vians, a highly advanced race, were capable of removing themselves from the danger and that they saved themselves and the inhabitants of at least one other of Minara's planets."

"And our three guests correspond to the race that the Vians are supposed to have saved," Doctor Crusher interjected.

"What do we know about these Vians?" Riker asked.

"Very little. They were first encountered by a research team on Minara II that was observing the Minaran civilizations on the other planets. The Vians apparently used the research team and members of the Starfleet away team assigned to pick them up as guinea pigs in an experiment to ascertain which of the other Minaran races was worthy of being saved from the nova."

"Experiment?" Picard asked a little distastefully.

"Yes, the object appeared to be to determine the level of compassion and self-sacrifice in the inhabitants of the other planets, though survivors of the experiments reported seeing only one Minaran subject."

"Survivors?"

"Yes, captain. In order to instill a spirit of self-sacrifice in the test subject, members of the research team were systematically tortured to death in front of her to inspire an attempt to save them. Fortunately, the Starfleet away team was able to convince the Vians that after the test subject had unsuccessfully offered her life to heal one of their team, that this was sufficient to prove her race's worthiness without sacrificing the team member," Data calmly recited.

Everybody else at the table stared back at him, appalled.

"Charming bunch of people," Riker commented, thinking that it was a good thing that the only Vian they'd encountered was a dead one.

"How was the test subject supposed to save somebody that had been tortured by the Vians?" Picard asked. Troi answered.

"Because this particular Minaran species, and our three guests, possess a very physical form of empathy.

"Most empaths' powers are functions of the brain, like telepathy. But the Minarans' is very different. They are empathic throughout their entire nervous system. With this they can sense and affect the physical life force of others."

"If one of them were injured," Doctor Crusher interjected, "or one of us, they could actually use their own nervous systems to heal the injury. Even sustain life. It was recorded a hundred years ago on Minara II, by the _Enterprise_ away team."

"_Enterprise_?" Picard questioned.

"The away team was led by the then captain of the starship _Enterprise_ of the day, Captain James T. Kirk. The other two members of the away team were the ship's science officer and medical officer who recorded the Minaran's abilities," Data explained to a slightly amused Picard. Starship captain's had had a great deal more latitude to go on away team missions a hundred years ago.

"If the Minarans can heal injuries, then why is the Vian dead?" Worf asked, ever practical.

"That Vian was very, very old," the Doctor responded. "I'm revising my estimate of his age to be closer to 500. And if I had to guess," she leaned forward, elbows on the conference table, "I'd say that these Minarans, or others, could have been maintaining the Vian's life functions for awhile, and they just reached the point where they finally couldn't keep up with the Vian's age."

Picard nodded and went on to the next subject.

"What about the ship, Mister LaForge?"

"Well, based on the few records there are about Vian technology I'd say it belonged to the Vian. Its control systems are primarily driven by direct thought. And the brain-wave patterns that ship is set to respond to are similar to the Vian patterns we have on record."

"This would explain why we received no response to our hail," Data added, seated next to the engineer. "If the Vian had died, his three passengers would not have been able to reply."

"And if the Vian knew he was dying and couldn't return to his home base, that might explain the distress signal," Doctor Crusher added.

"But why head for Federation space? Why not set course for back home?" Riker asked. They speculated on this, without reaching any conclusion. Was home base too far away? Had the Vian gotten his directions mixed up? They had no clear answer to this puzzle.

"Mister Data, can we extrapolate the ship's point of origin from its course?" Picard asked next.

"Yes, sir. Our calculations indicate that it came from the Hilosk star system. However, a detour there at warp 5 would put us three days late in arriving at Dunnet III."

Picard pondered the delay. They had no pressing business at Dunnet, just a supply pick-up and personnel transfers, but he would have to send Starfleet a lengthy point summary justifying the trip. A mere hundred years ago, Picard thought, a starship captain like James T. Kirk and his _Enterprise_ could have gone for months without having to answer to Headquarters. Now only the smaller deep space explorer vessels, like his old command, the _Stargazer_, had that luxury.

On the other hand, he wouldn't be able to leave the Minarans at Dunnet, he'd have to take them all the way to Starbase 212, where they were due to stop two weeks after Dunnet. From there it could take Starfleet weeks or even months to arrange a transport for them.

Picard straightened, making his decision when he realized that he was pausing a few seconds to weigh a trip to return three stranded travellers to their home world against how much paperwork he would have to fill out. Sadly, he thought he would never have hesitated with such trivialities when he'd commanded the _Stargazer_. The years and the more administrative nature of commanding the _Enterprise_ had taken their toll.

"I think we can afford the delay while we find out more about our guests and their craft. Commanders LaForge and Data, I would like you to continue to examine that ship; see if we can find anything more about these Vians and the Minarans. Counselor Troi to take charge of our guests. Hopefully, they will be able to tell us more about what happened.

"For the moment they don't appear to be a security risk," he added to Lieutenant Worf who nodded agreement. The Klingon had already made his assessment of the Minarans and of what security measures he would be free to use. Apparently harmless - no appreciable security measures would be taken. Picard ordered escorted access to all low security areas of the ship.

The captain stood, ending the meeting. "Number One, set course for the Hilosk star system."

**

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Her Yearning-Most Follower was sad and she went to him. The memory of the Oldest One's passing flashed from him to her and she responded with comfort. She touched his shoulders, his chest. She sat beside him on the cushioned bench/chair and pressed her body to his. He took her strength and she gave it happily. She felt his admiration, his joy at her presence. She had missed it in the past few days. He yielded and responded to her pleasure.

He had been so busy exploring the new ship, touching these new people, these Others, trying to interpret their responses. He'd traversed this ship of many corridors and so few open places. He'd hardly paid any heed to the needs of his body. At night, even lying between her and her Dearest-Most Follower, his mind could still not rest from the excitement, and he kept them all wakeful.

She stroked his gray hair and his head sank to her breast. She bid him to rest and he did so gratefully, eager to escape the sorrow that had overtaken him. She'd known that his energy would wane eventually and she'd waited patiently for him to feel it. His shoulders relaxed against her and he sleepily gazed out the window of their room at the stars whizzing by.

He had been so busy, here in this new place. The Darkest-Most-Eyes One had even shown them pictures of the First-To-Know-The-Old-Ones. The legends had come full circle for him.

Long ago he'd come to her, attracted by her as so many others were. But eventually, even she could not fulfil his quest to see the unseen, explore the unknown. His quest had driven him to seek the Oldest One out, to even trade his life's energy for it. But he'd still needed her, depended on her. So when he went with the Oldest One to the stars, she and her Dearest-Most Follower had come as well.

Before they'd gone on this great adventure her Yearning-Most Follower had sought out anyone who had ever known the First One, her grandchildren, the children of friends of friends. He'd probed the written records and looked to the Oldest One for knowledge, though that One had always been mysterious and circumspect in his dealings. But now the picture was complete. These were the people of the Others-To-First-Know-The-Old-Ones. Now the satisfaction of that discovery finally used up her Yearning-Most Follower's energy. He lay against her, content, his head on her breast.

Her Dearest-Most Follower came to them. She sat down, put her hands about his waist and pressed herself to his back. Her devotion to them both, so beautiful and pure, touched her strongly. His mind drifted and he finally rested. Moments later her Dearest-Most slept as well, unwilling and unable to resist her pull.

She sat with them for a long time and remembered...

The trip in the space craft had gone frighteningly wrong. She had not realized, until she had actually touched the Oldest One, after they had left, how close to death that One was. She had known of the Oldest One's age from her Yearning-Most Follower. But when her arms had caught the Oldest One when he'd fallen, she'd realized that her perceptions of him had been seriously colored by her Yearning-Most Follower's hope for his survival.

The three of them had tried to hold Oldest One's life energy together. It had been very hard to see within that One; even in its last time of life he had pursued his own, closed purposes, sharing with them only the smallest portion of his mind. She hadn't realized until the end that the Oldest One's own mind linked to the ship they'd traveled in, directing its course, its speed, the devices and atmosphere within. And then the Oldest One's life had bled away, his ancient body unable to bear anymore living.

It had been the most frightening time of her life. Entombed in that tiny craft with the great void of nothing around them, she feared that she would have lost herself had she been alone. Never before had she felt such a powerful need to be with others, to shield herself with their presence from the terrible emptiness outside. They had needed her just as much and she had needed them. She had given them refuge, but it was her own panic that burned most brightly in her memory, far brighter than the lifeless stars, so far away.

She kept these thoughts from stirring her companions next to her. This was one of her many strengths, that she could hold within her such dreadful feelings, away from those around her. But it could be hard to maintain and she stirred her thoughts on to happier things.

The terror of the tiny ship had suddenly changed to the wonders of the large one and the people within it. They had been offered anything they wished; food, clothing, a place to stay. Nothing the body would want was denied them.

But these new people did not freely give of themselves. They were incapable of touching deeply within themselves and within each other. Strangely, it did not seem unnatural to her, just different. It was lonely. Surrounded by multitudes of people she felt alone with her Followers.

She had waited, watched their comings and goings, learned what her Yearning-Most Follower had learned about them. Now she felt ready to explore these people for herself.

**

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Counselor Troi felt Commander Riker approach from behind. He had a very distinctive presence and she could always pick him out in a crowd, even when she couldn't see him. He was large and familiar to her, like an old lover, which he actually was, though they hadn't been intimate for years. Still, thought Deanna, there were some things that an empath never forgot.

"Counselor," he greeted her as he came around the table and sat down. She nodded in return.

"How are our guests?" he asked after he had ordered dinner from the Ten Forward host who'd come to their table.

"Very well," she replied. "In the two days they've been here they've adjusted very well. They know we're taking them home and I think the male, particularly, realizes that they won't see us after that. He's very curious about us, and he wants to cram in as much as he can." She sipped her fruit juice.

Riker nodded. Everywhere he'd been, the Minaran male had boldly stepped forward and with body language 'asked' to look at instrument panels, tools, rooms, people. Everything fascinated and delighted him.

"And the females?" he asked.

"They're not nearly as interested in us as he is. The shorter one is almost fearful. She doesn't like dramatic changes in her life and is looking forward to returning home."

"So, he's the leader?"

"No," Troi answered definitively. "The male and the shorter female both look to the taller female for that. They depend on her, just as she needs their trust and admiration."

"They communicate pretty well without speaking."

Troi smiled. "They are the most intense empaths I've ever met. And after spending most of my time among non-empaths, I find them rather refreshing."

Riker sat forward in his chair. He propped his bearded chin up with his hand, resting his elbow on the lighted table top. "Think they'd go over well in Betazed society?"

"I'd hate to introduce the male to my mother. She'd want to marry him right away."

They both shared a laugh before Riker turned back to business. "How do they relate to the Vians?"

"Through the male. He is the most personally affected by the Vian's death, and I believe he is the one who convinced the Vian to take them on this trip, though I'm sure they didn't expect it to turn out the way it has."

"Have they been able to communicate anything else about the Vian?"

Troi shook her head. "They looked upon the Vian as a mentor, a benefactor, like an elderly, generous grandparent. They were saddened by the Vian's passing, but not surprised."

She paused while the host returned with Riker's dinner, replicated fried chicken, a spinach salad, a glass of water, and two napkins. He unfolded one napkin and put it in his lap.

"They think of the Vians," Troi continued, "in general, as beings who are rarely seen, but always present, ready to help if they're needed, but invisible otherwise." Riker narrowed his eyes and bit into a drumstick, little golden brown crumbs sticking to his beard.

"The Vians," Riker began after he finished chewing his mouthful, "were supposed to have saved the Minarans when their star went nova. They might have stayed on to get them started." He put his chicken down, picked up the second napkin on his tray and wiped his mouth. Since growing his beard years ago, bitter experience had made him painfully aware of how noticeable even the slightest speck of food showed up in it, especially when lit from below from the table tops in Ten Forward.

"That would be my guess," Troi agreed. "Have they been able to find out anything out from the ship?"

Riker finished a forkful of spinach. "You haven't heard then?"

"What?"

"A few hours ago, the Vian ship started to deteriorate."

"Do you know what's causing it?" Troi asked, surprised.

"It looks like some kind of self-destruct mechanism. At least, that's what we're assuming for now. It seems pretty convenient that the ship stayed together just long enough to deposit our guests here, though we have no idea why it waited two days to go off."

"Have they found out anything about the Vians from it?"

Riker shook his head. "Nothing new since yesterday. Most of the records are star charts, information about Hilosk, some technical specs. Not much else. It's funny." Riker held his fork poised over his plate while he spoke. "There're no logs, no music, no fiction, you'd think on a small ship like that they'd have something to keep from getting bored."

"Perhaps any information about the Vians was erased, if the ship was set to self destruct, wouldn't any computer records be destroyed first?" Troi suggested. Riker nodded agreement. He, Worf and LaForge had come to the same conclusion. His fork crunched into a spinach leaf and a slice of cucumber.

They continued their discussion of the Minarans and the Vian's ship over Riker's dinner. The ship's power systems had been the first thing to fall apart, so there was no danger of it destructing explosively. The science and engineering teams were now frantically trying to extract what information they could while the rest of the craft still held together. The savory aroma of the chicken made Troi hungry and she ordered a voish pate sandwich and another fruit juice. The conversation was interrupted twice, once by an ensign with a personnel report and once by a call from Lieutenant Commander LaForge to report that the Vian ship was entering its terminal stage.

"Has anybody asked the Minarans about the ship deteriorating?" Troi asked after LaForge had signed off. Riker shook his head.

"They didn't know anything about the ship when we questioned them earlier, but," he paused. "It might not hurt to ask about this."

**

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o o o End Part 2**


	3. Chapter 3

**LESSONS LEARNED**

by ardavenport

**

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o o o Part 3**

"Hello," Riker greeted the male Minaran who answered the door. He smiled, nodded his gray-haired head and moved aside. The taller female stepped forward, hands extended, palms up, to greet him. Riker smiled back. She now wore a shimmering green dress that matched the tint of her hair and was quite similar to the blue dress that Deanna Troi wore. The male had also changed to a blue and yellow sparkling shirt, shiny blue pants and yellow boots. The shorter female had refused any new clothing offered to her and she still wore her pink and orange caftan.

"I just wanted to see if you were alright." Riker said politely. He knew that they couldn't understand the precise meaning of his words, but the Minarans had been remarkably intuitive about what was being said to them. It wasn't even necessary to address them by name; they knew who was being spoken to and when. It had been suggested that they be given names (just as the first Minaran had been christened 'Gem' by Captain Kirk's away team), but that idea had been squelched, particularly by Captain Picard. If they didn't use names for themselves, it would be rude and presumptuous to assign them as if the Minarans were children.

The male and taller female nodded (they had picked up the _Enterprise_ standard for 'yes' and 'no'), while their smaller companion sat motionless with her feet curled up under her in a stuffed chair. All three waited patiently, knowing that his visit had a purpose and he would tell them what he really wanted.

"I also was wondering if you could look at the Vian ship again. Perhaps you know something that we missed earlier." He gestured toward the door. The male grinned eagerly. Though he was clearly the oldest of the three (he could have been the father of the shorter female) he seemed to be the most youthful of the group.

The taller female encouraged the other to stand and they all followed Riker out.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Geordi LaForge shook his head sadly. His VISOR enhanced vision saw the shifting bands of stress on the body of the Vian ship. Bright, multicolored, jagged lines marked the places of greatest material degradation. It was as if it were coming apart at the seams. And he didn't need enhanced hearing to perceive the occasional creak and groan from the ship, now straining to hold itself together. It's sagging surface, no longer smooth and shiny, dully reflected the room's lighting as if it had been washed in soot.

Standing next to him, Lieutenant Commander Data watched with fascination. "Structural disintegration is imminent." He checked his tricorder. Half a dozen other personnel from Sciences and Engineering monitored the Vian ship's demise as well, with tricorders, scanners, and a portable spectro-analyzer. If they couldn't stop the end, they would at least record it faithfully.

The door to the hangar bay opened and Captain Picard entered. He stopped and glanced at the readings being collected by one of the attending scientists before going to stand next to LaForge. Data repeated his prognosis of doom for the alien craft and Picard acknowledged it with a nod.

The door to the hangar bay opened again. Riker entered with the three Minarans in tow.

"Eeeeeeerrrrrooooooo." An ominous groan echoed through the spacious bay. The Minarans, the male in particular, looked about, eyes wide. His gaze fell on the Vian ship and he quickened his pace. He stopped when Picard and Data held up their hands, staying his advance.

Straining metal screeched and finally relaxed its struggle to hold its form. A huge rear section of the Vian ship fell away and crashed to the floor. In quick succession more pieces cracked and dropped away to clang on the deck. It lost all its gloss entirely. The warped and deadly gray remains now resembled the carnage left behind after a fire.

Picard and Riker watched the Minarans. The male seemed particularly affected, as if he was watching a hope die underneath the crushing weight of reality. The females stood close to him protectively and shared his sadness.

But they didn't seem to be surprised, as if they looked on at the long-expected death of a friend.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

She felt his great sadness at the passing of the space craft. They had known it would occur. When it had become clear that its life was slipping even beyond their ability to sustain, the Oldest One had communicated to them that the ship would take them to a safe place, but after that, it would no longer need to exist.

She touched him and felt his answering memories of the ship as it had once been. Her Dearest-Most Follower hugged him. Neither of them had really liked travelling in it, not as he had, but they had felt the thrill of star travel through him.

Even as she shared his grief, she watched the ones from the great ship. The Hair-Faced One and the Smooth-Headed One observed them carefully. As usual they wanted to know what they knew. Touching these people was so difficult and indirect. They touched each other with only the sounds they made. But she knew; she could feel that, behind closed doors, in the many rooms of this ship, they were intimate with each other.

Their minds were insensitive to the feelings and currents of those around them. They reached out to one another with sound as cold and impersonal to her as hurtling through empty space in an alien ship while feeling no pressure of movement upon her body.

The Hair-Faced One made his sounds at them. He used his arms to express his meanings toward them and toward the crumbling pile of gray that had once been so beautiful. As always, he wanted them to give him what they knew of it and what it had been. But they had given all they had, and they slowly shook their heads.

She felt a strong twinge of frustration from the limitations of communicating with these people this way. Her curiosity about their inability to sense the life's movements within them changed to annoyance at having to express herself so distantly to them. She had picked up all their gestures and facial expressions and now felt quite fluent with them. But that simply wasn't enough. And even if she could have created any of the noises they made, she was certain that wouldn't be adequate either.

Behind the Hair-Faced One, the Machine-Body One made sounds to the Device-Eyes One. He replied and the Machine-Body One listened attentively. Her Yearning-Most Follower gracefully extended his hand back to the Hair-Faced One and the Smooth-Headed One. He was sad, from the loss of the ship of the Oldest One and he was sad that he had nothing more to give from it. The surface meaning of his gesture was clear to these Others, but the depth of her Yearning-Most Follower's memories was invisible to them. The Hair-Faced One shook his head and turned to the Smooth-Headed One in deference.

She sensed the complexities of the thoughts and meanings contained in their sounds, and she understood that she could not comprehend the subtleties buried in them, but the inner thoughts and sensations were missing from these impersonal exchanges. She wondered if they even truly understand each other.

The Machine-Body One and the Device-Eyes One approached and made sounds to the first two. She had seen everyone defer to these two. And between them, the Hair-Faced One always deferred to the smaller, Smooth-Headed One.

She studied them carefully, even as they studied her and her companions. Surely the time for distant introductions had come to an end. Though aliens, they were very similar in many ways. The feelings and life flows trapped within their bodies were as real as her own, but cruelly isolated. It would be a bitter thing indeed to be returned to their home by these people and then to part without even once touching them.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Commander Riker had turned to leave when the taller female stopped him.

He'd escorted the three Minarans back to their quarters, and was about to leave when he felt a hand at his elbow. Curiously, he looked back at her. The door, which had opened, automatically slid closed as he stepped back.

"Yes?" he asked.

She smiled back at him enticingly. Her arm slid around to his waist, her body brushed up against his. A smile crept across his own lips as he looked back at a very pleasing pair of green eyes. She didn't need any words to verbalize what she was suggesting. Her other hand touched his chest, slid down to his stomach and lower. In it's wake, the skin under his uniform tingled. He thought about what Doctor Crusher had said about the Minarans' nervous systems.

He straightened. The other two Minarans were watching them.

"Um, perhaps this isn't the right place." Riker had no reservations about what she was suggesting, but he did object to an audience. The other two seemed amused by his discomfort and they nodded knowingly to their companion. She looked at him and shrugged in a 'what can we do?' gesture. Her hand caressed his waist and the tingling increased. He gently took her wrist and turned her toward the door.

"If you'll excuse us," he said to the other two. The male shrugged back, and if she'd been capable of it, Riker thought that the smaller female would have giggled.

They left together.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Captain Picard entered his quarters. What a waste, he thought, sitting down at his desk. He activated the viewer and brought up a synopsis of the data they had about the Vians.

Where were they? On the world that the Minarans now inhabited? Probably. But apparently they maintained only an elitist relationship with the race they'd saved from the Minaran nova.

Alone, the rest of his rooms in darkness save for the working area, he brooded over the lighted display. Why had the Vian headed for Federation space? Had it been even intentional, or perhaps the whim of that dying Vian pilot?

He eyed a visual of the Vian ship as it had first appeared to them. _What a waste._

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

She caressed the hair on his face and he smiled sleepily back at her. It didn't feel nearly as nice as she'd hoped. The hairs were rough and scratchy. She kissed him and he lazily responded. He was spent.

He relaxed, his movements becoming more and more languid. She gently stroked his hair long after he fell asleep as she pondered what she would do now.

They were so similar and yet so unalike. Passion was the same, but intimacy remained fettered, strangled in isolation. All he had taken from her had been the sensual pleasure of the moment and only the simplest of emotions. That was all he'd been able to offer her. The beauty of the instant, the subtleties of life flowing to it peak had entirely escaped him. But even so, his piteously inadequate responses had been enough to satisfy her with their sincerity.

She sat up and lightly touched his forehead. It could be done. He could feel what she felt.

She took her hand away and got up. Perhaps later she would. She washed. Then she dressed.

Before leaving she fondly regarded her Hair-Faced One. But there were others on the ship that she could touch.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Warren Muli had just finished his shift in security and looked forward to a quiet evening with Fred, a holo-drama, a big basket of french fries and a carbonated soda.

"Uh oh."

One of the Minarans, alone and unescorted, wafted down the corridor in her shimmering, green dress toward him. His evening plans evaporated like a soda bubble.

_Why did __I__ have to find her?_ he wondered as he held up a hand to stop her. She complied easily enough, but she stood rather closer than he liked. He stepped back and tapped his communicator.

"Ensign Muli to Mister Worf."

"Worf here." Thankfully, the Minaran seemed to recognize Worf's voice and she warily backed away.

"I've found one of the Minarans wandering around on Deck 8 alone, sir."

"Which one?"

"Uh, the tall woman. I don't know what she wants. And there's no one else around."

"I'll be right there."

'Wonderful,' Muli thought. He knew from the hour that Lieutenant Worf had to be off duty. He'd just interrupted a Klingon in whatever Klingon officers did when they were off duty. A few minutes later Worf appeared, wearing white, coarse pajamas and slippers. He looked angry, but not any more than usual, Muli thought with relief.

Properly intimidated, the Minaran didn't get within two paces of the security chief.

"You should not be here," he instructed. She straightened and gave him a 'I don't know what you're talking about' look.

Worf reached almost over her shoulder to touch the com panel on the wall. She shied away from his outstretched arm.

"Worf to Counselor Troi..."

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

"I-I don't think it's going to work out after all." The young woman and man sat next to each other on the couch, but they scrupulously avoided touching each other and looked in opposite corners of the room while the woman spoke.

"I see," Troi replied. "What do you think, Bahni?"

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

"...Counselor Troi is unavailable," the computer answered Worf's call. "Do you wish to interrupt?"

"No," Worf answered. The last time he'd interrupted...well he didn't like to think about the last time he'd interrupted Counselor Troi. The Minaran made noiseless speaking motions with her lips. She held her hands up and gestured toward herself as if she wanted something.

"Is there someone you wish to see?" the Klingon asked. The Minaran looked quizzically at him and then nodded. Worf punched up the I.D. file they'd been using to communicate with the Minarans. Annoying as it was for him to use pictures to speak with these aliens, from a security point of view, Worf appreciated the limitations of the Minarans on a ship where the control systems were primarily voice-activated.

She didn't respond to pictures of her companions, Counselor Troi, or Doctor Crusher. She grinned at Commander Riker's image. Worf had no idea what this meant, but it wasn't an affirmative, so he went on.

She pointed at Picard's picture on the computer terminal screen next to the comm panel.

"It's late," he told her brusquely. She pointed at the picture. Then she started, looking around Worf's shoulder. Worf and Muli turned just in time to see the head of a miniature version of the Klingon duck back into a side corridor.

"Alexander!" Worf bellowed at his son. He was supposed to have gone to bed an hour ago. "Return to our quarters, at once!" They heard a pair of small feet running away down the corridor. Growling, Worf turned back to his first problem. The Minaran was smiling. She pointed to the picture of Picard again.

"Picard here," the captain replied to Worf's call.

"Worf here, Captain. We've found one of the Minarans wandering unattended on Deck 8. She appears to want to see you."

Alone at the desk in his cabin, Picard looked up from his view screen. He'd been working late.

"To see me?"

"Yes, sir."

"Bring her to my quarters, Mister Worf." He finished the sentence he'd been writing, saved his work and filed it. He brought up the lights in the main room. A moment later the Minaran entered, followed by Worf and one of his security people. Picard only glanced at the Klingon's white pajamas. He didn't expect him to wear his uniform all the time, though from the stiffness of Worf's posture, the lieutenant obviously did, at least when reporting to his superiors.

The Minaran stood before him, the desk between them. She made a slow arms open gesture toward him, her upper body leaning over his desk. He swallowed, not quite knowing what to make of it. The green dress she now wore was patterned after one of Counselor Troi's. The shimmering material clung to the gentle curves of her body attractively and his eyes briefly focused on the smooth skin of her breasts, revealed by the plunging neckline as she bent toward him. He straightened in his seat.

"Have you spoken with Counselor Troi?"

"Counselor Troi is...unavailable at the moment."

Picard nodded. He'd interrupted Counselor Troi a few times himself and didn't care to repeat the mistake if he could avoid it.

"The last time I saw you," he politely addressed the Minaran, "you were with your friends and Commander Riker." She shrugged innocently, as if she knew something that he didn't. Picard tapped his communicator.

"Picard to Commander Riker." He waited. No answer.

"Commander Riker, respond." Another long pause.

"Computer, locate Commander Riker."

"Commander Riker is in his quarters." After the briefest of nods from Picard, Worf and Ensign Muli left to investigate.

The Minaran still stood in front of Picard's desk. He got up from his seat. Slowly, deliberately, she moved around the desk to stand directly in his way. She was a little bit taller than him and he found himself staring at her glittering green eyes. She licked her lips.

"Perhaps we should..." She touched him. He gasped. It was now blatantly apparent what she was offering. He stepped back.

"I'm sorry, I don't think..." She lovingly stroked his neck. Something went numb in his throat. His lips moved, but no sound came out. His mouth filled with saliva.

He seized her wrist and roughly pulled her hand away from him. He reached for his communicator. Even without speaking he could signal a distress, and now there was something more ominous about Commander Riker not answering his hail.

She touched his chest and his grip on her relaxed, his arms dropping to his sides. She guided him to his knees on the floor. Her eyes were questioning, almost pleading. It didn't look like she meant him any harm, and it certainly didn't feel that way.

He gasped again. What had Doctor Crusher's report been about the Minarans? _Empathic nervous system?_ Capable of sensing and affecting the life energy of others? She sensually caressed his cheeks and under his chin. Even if he could have called for help, exactly what would he say? Her hands slid down to his shoulders, tracing lazy arcs on his chest.

Gritting his teeth and once again, he tried to say something and failed. It felt as if he'd entirely forgotten how to speak. He glared at the Minaran. Surely, if she was empathic, she would know that he did not want her attentions, no matter how seductive the physical sensation. Indeed, he could see worry lines crinkling between her green eyes, her brows drawing together. She looked concerned, even as she massaged the muscles at his sides, her hands working lower. His breathing slowed, loud and husky, in time with the rhythm of her kneading. He tried to push her away and barely managed to move his arms at all. Air whistled between his clinched teeth.

_Stop it_, he thought with as much venom as he could muster.

She did.

Her hands fell away and he sank lower to sit on the floor, his legs curled up under him. He looked up at her face which showed utter puzzlement, even shock. With a sudden flash of insight he read her expression. Nobody had ever said 'no' to her before.

She touched his head. Her fingertips left a tingling trail that made him shiver. He shut his eyes and shook his head weakly. _It doesn't matter what it feels like, I am __not__ interested._ Her hands left him and for a moment he thought that she might have finally gotten the message. But then her hands returned, grasping him about the middle, she pressed his head between her breasts. His head swam. She lowered him to the floor.

He opened his eyes. They lay partially under his desk. She straddled him, her inner thighs rubbing against his hips.

_Stop it_, he thought fiercely. But she didn't seem to hear him this time. Or she didn't want to. She began mouthing the skin of his throat. The smell of her was sweet, yet alien. Helplessly, he inhaled her scent. Treacherously, his body continued to respond to her.

It made some sense to him. Given two contradictory reactions to her advances, of course she would choose the physical over the mental one. Her whole race communicated by empathy. His denial of his own physical responses could be as alien to her as secrets were to a race of pure telepaths. And he couldn't deny that what she was doing was pleasurable. Her lips moved up to his chin. His jaw involuntarily relaxed.

He shut his eyes again and deliberately thought violent things about her to drive her away. None of the Minarans would ever approach Lieutenant Worf and the Klingon was one of the most violently natured people he knew, at least personally.

She paused, and he kept it up. Knives slicing flesh. Huge, hideous slithering worms spitting acid. Explosive decompression. Blood boiling away in vacuum. Eyes bulging in their sockets. The sadistic images seemed to give him a tiny bit of strength, and he clenched his teeth again.

He felt her body weight on his chest. Her lips touched his. Her tongue slipped into his mouth and the sensation made him suck inward. Her hands loosened the fastener of his trousers.

He bit down. Hard.

In a twinkling the sensation changed from indescribable pleasure to agony. His back arched. His jaw locked. The pain of his teeth cutting into her tongue magnified and shot back into him like an electric current. She squirmed, but still desperately tried not to move her head and work his teeth deeper into her flesh. He tasted salty, acidic blood.

Her hands touched his jaw. White pain flashed before his eyes. His mouth opened and he heard her bump into the furniture as she rolled away from him.

He still couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't swallow or even close his mouth, which still hung open. The piercing pain from his jaw shot right through his temples. Flickering phantoms clouded his vision. He felt nauseous.

_Well_, he thought, _at least it worked_.

**

* * *

o o o End Part 3**


	4. Chapter 4

**LESSONS LEARNED**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

o o o Part 4**

She huddled, clutching and hiding behind the smooth, curved wooden support of the table, under its smooth glassy top.

Mad. Surely he was mad.

With his emotions isolate, of course he would be. He was older than most of the others. Was this what happened to them as they aged? Trapped and alone, yet surrounded by their fellows, were they all mad, or going mad?

How else could he be so separate from himself? His body had readily accepted her invitation, yet his thoughts had run wild into hideous, consuming bedlam.

His eyes opened. His head didn't move, but his eyes found her. They glittered evilly in the light from above. Her own blood still stained his lips. She tried a small swallow. The wound was nearly healed, the pain now less than a memory.

No. They weren't all mad. Her Hair-Faced One had contained not the slightest trace of insanity. No. Perhaps it was just this one. The vileness of his thoughts still stained her mind. Terrible images that he'd superimposed upon his own picture of her in his mind, and then he'd forced them upon her even as she'd offered him love and intimacy.

He could not be aware of the horror of what he'd done. He could not be aware of the nature of the horror he had just heaped upon her. Tragic. So late in his years, it seemed that he had never touched the souls of those around him.

But he could.

Could she touch him again?

She pushed her fear away as she crawled back to him. That was one of her strengths. She positioned herself over him, his head between her knees. His eyes glared back at her, warning her away. Resolutely she reached down to his temples.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

"I'm fine!" Commander Riker declared, again. Doctor Crusher, sitting next to him on the bed, put away her medical tricorder. She shut the medical kit on the bed next to her.

"I'd say that's an accurate assessment," she agreed. Riker blushed, knowing full well what Crusher's medical equipment must have revealed.

Worf growled unhappily. This had not been a good night for him. Forgotten, Ensign Muli stood so that Worf was between him and Commander Riker, and he prayed that someone would dismiss him, so he could go return to Fred and leave the higher ranking officers to sort the Minarans out.

"My apologies, Commander," Worf apologized formally, "but when you didn't answer, I entered." The Klingon kept his eyes pointed forward at a spot some ten centimeter's over Riker's head. "And, it was difficult to wake you, sir."

"It's all right, Lieutenant," Riker held up his hands in surrender. The tone of his voice said that he did not want to hear any more about it. Doctor Crusher got up.

"Well, at least we didn't interrupt anything." She gave Will Riker a meaningful Doctor-knows-best nod. His face went blank, then he looked about the room.

"Where is she?"

"Who?" Crusher asked innocently.

"The Minaran."

_Which one?_, she wondered privately, though she had a pretty good idea about which one it had been.

Worf's face went blank. "I left her with the captain," he said in a voice that he might have used had he been confessing that he'd forgotten to take care of an armed Romulan in Ten Forward.

"What?" Riker questioned.

"She was wandering in the corridors unattended, sir. Counselor Troi was unavailable and the Minaran expressed a desire to see Captain Picard. He remembered seeing her with you last, and I left her in his quarters when you didn't answer."

A slow smile crept across Riker's lips. "You left her in his quarters?"

"Yes, sir." Worf turned to leave, but the commander held up his hand to stop him.

"I'm...not so sure that we should interrupt them."

"Sir?" Worf asked, surprised. Riker tried to restrain his rampant grin, but his blue eyes twinkled.

"Interrupt what?" Doctor Crusher asked, her eyes a much cooler shade of blue.

He hurriedly cleared his throat. "Oh, well, I thought they might be talking..."

"She can't talk."

He nodded. "Yes..." he admitted, at a loss for anything else to say.

Crusher glanced at Worf, wearing white, Klingon-ish pajamas and looking decidedly uncomfortable about having lost track of a stray alien. The security ensign behind him looked equally unhappy and kept his eyes averted.

Mercilessly she tapped her communicator.

"Crusher to Picard." She waited a few seconds, then called again. After a similar pause she called a third time. Wrapping a sheet about him, Riker got up. No matter what Picard was doing, he would have answered by now. Crusher, Worf and Muli left, not waiting for him.

On the way, both Crusher and Worf tried hailing Picard. Still no answer. They exited the turbolift at a run.

Worf entered the captain's quarters first. The door wasn't locked.

At first it appeared as if no one was there. Then the Klingon spied them under the desk, the top of the Minaran's green tinted hair bent over the captain, lying on the floor under her. Worf advanced, seized her by the arm and dragged her up off the deck. Her slight weight negligible to the angry Klingon, she bumped hard against the underside of the desk as he lifted her away from the captain.

Her eyes wide open, her mouth agape, she offered him no resistance. Terrified, she stared back at him. After a few seconds, Worf realized that she wasn't even looking at him; she wasn't looking at anything. Standing next to them, Muli holstered his phaser; it clearly wasn't going to be needed.

Slowly, Worf released his grip on the Minaran. She brought her hands up, fingers spread wide and trembling. She crossed her arms over her chest, her head fell back, as if to scream, thought she didn't make a sound.

"Emergency medical team to the captain's quarters." Worf turned to see Doctor Crusher, medical kit laid out next to her, press a hypospray to Picard's neck. Eerily, the captain's expression was a parody of the Minaran's; eyes open wide, mouth agape, he didn't respond at all to the doctor hovering over him.

Muli swallowed hard and turned back to the prisoner...and just managed to catch her as she went limp. He lowered her to the deck. He heard Worf snarl. He hoped Fred wasn't waiting up for him.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Picard kept his eyes closed.

He knew that he lay on an examination table in Sickbay, a bio-diagnostic over his middle. Around him he heard Doctor Crusher and her staff. Busy, efficient, they scanned and probed him with their instruments. Doctor Crusher demanded a new test; a nurse reported a new finding on the bio-readouts. He didn't know what was wrong with him, but he had a nasty feeling that it was something serious, something deep. _What had the Minaran done?_

He didn't feel injured, not in the usual sense; no torn muscles, impaled flesh or broken bones. But something was wrong. He felt nervous, queasy, alternating hot and cold, as if he'd eaten something that didn't agree with him, or as if the atmosphere mix wasn't quite right. He felt intensely aware of his surroundings and yet distracted by some diffuse, inner malady.

"...I'm getting abnormal synaptic activity in the thalamus..." Doctor Crusher placed something, two somethings on his forehead. They were light, warm on his skin and stuck to his skull with a temporary adhesive. He fought a sudden urge to stretch. He tensed his muscles. His memory brought up half a dozen unsavory recollections of previous injuries. A surge of adrenalin tickled his insides. Ruthlessly, he forced himself not to dwell upon unknowns and to concentrate on his immediate surroundings. The cushioned biobed he lay on was too hard, or too soft, he couldn't decide which. Without moving his arms from his side, he extended his fingers and pressed the palms of his hands down.

Then the urge to stretch left him. He relaxed, feeling faintly dizzy, and profoundly unhappy, as if he'd irretrievably missed some event that he'd wanted to see. A parade of missed opportunities from his past plagued him. He shook his head, as if to shake them loose.

"Shhhhh, don't move." He felt Doctor Crusher's hand at his temple. A picture of her formed in his mind and he fixated on it.

As soon as he squelched one feeling or memory, another would escape to torment him. He tried harder to concentrate on controlling them. The damage was done; the best thing he could do was to contain his inner chaos and keep it from hindering Crusher's examination. It was as if the Minaran had opened up the gates of hell and given free reign to all the demons within.

In his previous encounters with the Minarans, he had not experienced any effect on his mind. He'd encountered telepathy before in the past; he knew what it felt like in its many forms. There had been no such stirrings from any of the three Minarans. Until now.

After her failed attempt at sexual coercion, the taller female had sat above him and reached down, like a goddess from the clouds, intruding directly into his mind. It had been brutal. He could still remember the feel of her life energy, physically probing inside his brain. At the same time, in appalling contradiction, he'd felt her own emotions willing him to think that she was doing something good for him. He hadn't believed it for a moment, before, during or after.

Her thoughts, her emotions had been distinctive, apart from his own, but still connected. She had spread before him her life of peace and beauty, the images of the hundreds, thousands of friends, lovers, the followers she'd acquired among her people. It seemed that everyone was a follower to her. Beautiful, loving, caring, charismatic, she drew her followers to her with her strength and love. It was not vanity; it was the honest truth as far as she knew it; she could not lie to him. But from what she was doing, from her denial of his rejection of her, he knew that she could lie to herself, not seeing things she didn't want to. She'd reached for his memories, opening them up like a book, and he'd had no capacity to stop her.

She'd gotten more than she'd bargained for.

All the carnage from a career in Starfleet came spilling out at her. A lifetime of danger and hurt, joy and pain overtook her. Born and raised in a society of gentle empaths, she had hardly ever known fear or want, and the little she did know of them had been closely shared with others, and so, diminished to insignificant proportions. He'd deliberately let his thoughts rest on the worst and most painful memories.

Lying stiffly on the biobed, Picard shuddered. He'd felt her shock and grief and horror as if they were his own. The violence and pain he'd experienced and caused in the past, a brutal contrast to the incomparable pleasure that space exploration gave him and the enormous pride and satisfaction he felt in his own accomplishments, they'd leapt upon her like devils from Pandora's box.

But though he experienced them with her, during the entire incident he had always been conscious of which thoughts were hers and which were his. There was no confusion of identities as there was in a Vulcan mind meld. He and the Minaran had shared the same emotions, but there had never been a question about whose were whose.

But even as she reeled from the shock, she still pressed herself upon him as if he should welcome her invasion. His anger had transmuted into rage. Wasn't she listening to him? Couldn't she hear his soul screaming that he didn't want her?

Out of his past, he focused his attention on his bitterest memories; all the times he'd been forced to endure the usurpation of his mind by an alien. Over his lengthy career in Starfleet, it had happened to him dozens of times. There were an amazing number of life forms and entities in the galaxy that were capable of moving into the human mind as if it were a hotel. Picard never got used to it. Most people never did. The utter shame and anguish of it was as bad as physical injury and much worse than any public embarrassment. There was no escape from it, no place to hide from having every little twisted thought examined and laid open to judgement.

She'd recoiled, but still she'd persisted, still not comprehending what she was doing to him, her mind linearly focused on the good she was doing for him. Furious that she'd seemed to refuse to see his side, he'd dredged up the memories that even he was afraid to look at. The Borg. Even years afterwards he couldn't think about it without feeling a quiver of fear and shame. He couldn't forget. His recollections of the Borg had the crystal clarity of a recording, for they'd been implanted directly into his brain by the cybernetic devices that had violated his flesh, his skull. He hadn't been able to stop them, he couldn't have even died. The Borg wouldn't let him. They'd forced his thoughts down their pathways and used him. Only his emotions had been left to him, making the nightmare complete. He could feel the horror and disgust of speaking with a Borg voice and not being able to stop it. If the Borg hadn't been stopped on the threshold of destroying Earth, if he hadn't been rescued, he knew he would have gone mad, the tiny bit of identity that he'd still retained would have shriveled and died.

She'd broken. Under the crushing weight of the realization of what he really felt about what she was doing to him, she'd finally felt the pain and degradation of mind invasion. Even as he'd shared the anguish with her, he'd forced upon her the final blow, that she was causing it, that she was the one who was hurting him.

"Jean-Luc." His fists were clinched, his eyes shut tightly. He felt Dr. Crusher's fingers touching the top of his head.

The Minaran's thought's were gone from him. He'd been rescued. He recalled Worf and Doctor Crusher. He'd been transported to sickbay, where he was now. But the Minaran had left some lasting injury. He kept oscillating wildly between emotional extremes; his mind furiously churned and he still hadn't been able to control it. Every time he would master one fit of panic, another form of it would rise up inside him.

She'd been inside his head, probing it, perhaps changing it. The Minaran's thoughts had been that he didn't feel deeply enough about anything and that she would free him from what bound his emotions. He suspected some form of brain damage, that she'd robbed him of the ability to control his emotions and he fervently hoped that it could be reversed. _I can't live like this._

"Jean-Luc, can you hear me?"

He turned his head, and blinking, opened his eyes.

He felt an overwhelming compassion for her, fondness, sympathy. He desperately wanted to help her, to...

_What?_

Standing over him, concerned, yet cool and professional in posture, Doctor Crusher didn't look the slightest bit helpless or in need of comfort as she repeated her question. He stared back.

_Oh, no_, he thought, realizing just what had actually happened to him. _Oh, no._

**

* * *

o o o End Part 4**


	5. Chapter 5

**LESSONS LEARNED**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

o o o Part 5**

She shivered and tried again-and was rejected again.

Worrying and fretting, she felt the comforting presence of Her Tallest Friend. They waited next to the high bed that her Adored One lay on. A male Alien One passed a device over her and studied the meaningless symbols glowing over her head.

She shivered again. Even the cold, impersonal rooms they'd been given were better than this frightful place. It was a place where the wounded went, but there was nothing about it that would heal the soul. Gray and black and filled with devices with glowing symbols on them, these rooms were unnatural and sterile. There was a green, potted plant in a far corner of the room, and she wondered how it could ever grow in such a place. The very air smelled lifeless.

She turned back to her Adored One. She was not hurt, in her body at least. She knew they were near, but she did not want their help; she did not want to show them the terrible hurt that had been done to her.

Across the room the Hurtful One lay on another high bed, surrounded by even more Alien Ones and their devices. Oh, why did her Adored One have to uncover what was within that One? These Alien Ones chose to live isolate and separate, and she'd always feared that there was a dark reason for it.

Her Adored One sat up. She and her Tallest Friend each took her hands and felt the weariness within their companion. She wanted them to wait. They would wait for her to heal herself within. She would not show them her pain; she would not hurt them with it.

She accepted this and her Tallest Friend accepted this. But it was a sad kind of acceptance. Her Adored One was so strong, but when she thought of the terrible peal of agony from her that had sent them frantically out into the corridors of this ship of sound, she doubted the wisdom of this choice.

Gently her Adored One touched her face, wishing her doubts to be still. And they were-almost.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Doctor Crusher took one of the spare chairs in her office. Captain Picard had taken the seat behind her desk. Deanna Troi sat in the other chair. Worf and Riker, both in uniform now, stood, though Riker lounged against the desk casually enough to be practically sitting on it during the impromptu meeting.

Wearily, Picard started things by asking for the Minarans' status. Worf reported that they were back in their quarters, this time with a guard at the door. Doctor Crusher interrupted with the medical status of taller female; she was unharmed. She'd healed the one physical injury she had received before she had arrived in sickbay. Counselor Troi followed up with her assessment of the mental state of all three. She glanced more than once in Worf's direction and bluntly hinted that an armed guard was a poor response to what had happened to them. Worf responded tersely, but the captain silenced their potential confrontation. While they spoke, Commander Riker kept glancing at Picard, sitting behind Doctor Crusher's desk.

A stern glare had been enough to silence the security officer, but Picard knew that the Klingon was still angry, frustrated. And the others were tense and anxious. He knew that, too.

Picard nodded to Doctor Crusher to proceed.

"There was no physical or permanent harm done," she stated after a brief review of the events. Picard's eyes narrowed, but he didn't say anything. "However, there seems to be a residual effect.

"Apparently the Minaran wanted to share her empathic abilities," she continued. Not taking his eyes off of her, Picard put an elbow on the desk and began to massage one temple with an index finger. "And these Minarans have the ability to do it."

Riker quickly looked at Picard and then back to the Doctor. "What?" Worf didn't move or speak, but his eyes betrayed his surprise. Troi answered.

"The Minarans are capable of...sensitizing the human brain to empathic communication. In this case, the captain." There was an appreciable pause.

Riker slid off the desk, unconsciously moving away from Picard. "Why?" he asked.

"Apparently I wasn't open enough," he answered, his index finger stopping as he spoke. He lowered his hand and laid his arm back down on the desk.

"The Minaran took the captain's refusal of her sexual offerings to mean that he couldn't understand her," Troi explained diplomatically. "She did not believe that he was capable of understanding her approach, based on the assumption that if he had, he would not have refused her."

"She was mistaken," Picard said, immediately regretting it. Tension knotted in his stomach in reflection of the effect his comment had on the other people in the room. He let Troi continue.

"The Minarans, up until now, have been fairly distant with us, by their own standards, because we are a totally new experience to them. But now they're accustomed to us, the taller female felt that it was time to approach us in a way more familiar to her." Commander Riker swallowed hard. "Unfortunately, none of them have had any experience with any other culture but their own, except for their very limited contact with the Vians. She did not understand the real differences between us."

Picard felt surrounded, watched, foolish. _That's not me_, he reminded himself. "She didn't get very far," he said, looking at Troi. "She didn't think she was doing anything wrong. We, or rather I, wasn't behaving the way she thought I was supposed to. It was quite a shock when she finally realized my side of it," he finished quietly. No one answered.

"How did this happen? How did she do it?" Riker asked.

"The human brain isn't designed to send or receive telepathic or empathic responses without some kind of external assistance." Doctor Crusher looked away from Picard to Riker as she spoke. "The only time it occurs independently is as a genetic mutation. In this case, the Minaran was able to use her nervous system to create neural pathways in the cerebral cortex that simulate an area of reception."

"Temporarily," Picard reminded her. She glanced toward him and nodded.

"But those pathways can't be sustained. After a while, they'll deteriorate and disappear."

"How long?" Riker asked suspiciously.

Crusher shrugged. "From the medical records and my own tests, I'd say about three or four days."

"You just have wait for them to disappear?"

"I'm afraid so. There's a small amount of risk involved in actively destroying the new pathways, and if they're going to deteriorate on their own I'd just as soon let them."

The Commander looked at Picard, and then just as quickly looked away. "This has happened before?"

Crusher nodded. "Apparently dozens of times, though I've never actually seen a case of it myself. There was one instance, about sixty years ago where a whole starship crew was affected for two weeks. They never did identify the entity that did it, either."

Picard felt a pang of guilt building up in the pit of his stomach, and knew it had to be Riker's. _Damn._

"It shouldn't affect our current mission," Picard announced. "We'll be arriving at the Hilosk system in less than two days, where the Minarans will disembark." He straightened in the chair and tugged his uniform tunic into place. "Presumably, soon after that this residual effect," he nodded toward Crusher, "should disappear as well." He looked squarely at the other occupants of the room and nobody bothered voicing the speculation of what they would do if it didn't disappear. If it remained for longer than predicted, then they would deal with it then.

This statement seemed to end the meeting. Riker and Worf nodded and left. Doctor Crusher stood, but Troi stayed in her seat. Picard stared back at her.

"You have a question, Counselor?"

"I was wondering how you were feeling."

He sighed. He'd been expecting that. "Quite frankly, Counselor, I don't know how I feel right now." That answer didn't seem to satisfy her, so he turned the question back to her.

"How should I feel?"

"A great deal, actually, probably as a jumble of unwelcome emotions. Some of them will have an obvious external source, but a great deal of them will simply be confusing." The man before her felt nearly the same as always to the counselor, reserved, thoughtful, controlled. But a new dimension was overlaid on the impression Picard left on her empathic senses, like static on a clear picture. Separate from the captain's personality, an emotional noise perpetually distracted him.

"I can tell the difference between my own feelings and somebody else's," the captain stated definitively, rankled by the suggestion that he would be confused by his present condition.

Unaffected by Picard's show of pride, Troi explained further. "Empathy isn't very coherent. I've dealt with it for my entire adult life and I can't always discriminate between the emotions from over a thousand people."

"But you can tell the difference between your own emotions and someone else's," he reminded.

"Yes, but after a Betazoid's abilities emerge during adolescence, he or she receives years of careful training to teach them how to deal with them and separate their own self from those around them."

"And you expect me to have problems with that?" he challenged.

Sitting straight and perfectly still in her chair, Troi shook her head. "No. But I don't expect it to be easy for you to deal with either."

Picard seemed to relax, accepting her assessment. The office, small, gray and neutral, was quiet except for the nondescript rustlings of Doctor Crusher putting her hands into her pockets or himself shifting in his chair. Since it was late, there weren't even the muted sounds of activity from the rest of sickbay. But the room felt noisy to him, even crowded. A smoldering uneasiness settled in the back of his mind. He was growing accustomed to it, like a person might become used to being scrutinized by a large audience, an unpleasant experience, but bearable.

"I don't expect it to be," he finally admitted. "Do you have any suggestions about what I should do to deal with this?"

"I can tell you what you should be careful of." She folded her hands in her lap. "Usually it will be obvious which emotions are yours and which are not, because the external ones won't have any source. And they'll go just as quickly as they come. The real difficulties will occur when you pick up an emotion that is very similar to what you're already feeling. It may then be impossible to distinguish between your anger or sadness from that of somebody next to you or three decks away."

He eyed her carefully as she spoke. She had read him so many times before in the past, he gave into the temptation to try 'sensing' what she felt. He got nothing. The morass of discomfort he already experienced stayed just as incomprehensible, neither increasing, nor decreasing from his efforts.

"Intensity of emotion can be just as important as proximity. You might experience a sensation from a person in the same room with you, or from somebody down in Engineering when you're on the Bridge. The important thing is that you realize how unpredictable it is, and that you should not make any conclusions or decisions based on what you might feel while this effect lasts. For example, you shouldn't try to actively use it, since it is so uncontrollable." Picard narrowed his eyes at her. Had she known what he'd just tried?

"I gather, Doctor," he addressed Crusher, "that there isn't much you can do to lessen the effect?"

"Oh, there are several drugs I could give you, if the symptoms become severe, that would greatly reduce the empathic responses." She paused. "But they would also tend to reduce other brain functions as well. Particularly memory, higher reasoning and analytic abilities. There's no way to separate those from the empathic reception, since the same neurons are involved. And I don't think you'd care for that option unless it were absolutely necessary."

He frowned, unhappy with that choice. "No, I wouldn't," he replied, standing. Straightening his red and black uniform tunic, he stepped away from the desk. "I'm going to speak with the Minarans." Doctor Crusher moved to black him.

"I think you should get some rest first," she told him.

"Doctor, I believe I still have some unfinished business with them," he answered back.

"Jean-Luc." Her tone softened. "It can wait until morning." He felt concern for her, affection. Her feelings. The memory of her thoughts abruptly intruded on him. They'd shared their thoughts so recently, unwillingly as captives on an away mission. His current situation was a lopsided version of their experience on Kesprit, and she knew it. He could see it on her face and in spite of Troi's warning about not trusting the emotions he sensed, he was sure that she was thinking of it. Picard kept catching himself staring at her hair or some small feature on her face. He kept recalling his guilty confession to her by firelight that he'd loved her even when her husband, his best friend, had been alive.

Doctor Crusher stared silently back. She'd been catching and checking her thoughts for the past hour, trying not to intrude, and perhaps trying to keep him from intruding on her. She kept her mind focused the patient standing before her who looked like he was about to plunge into a needless confrontation when he should rest.

"No, it can't wait," he answered gently. "I promise to go to my cabin afterwards." She didn't look satisfied and he felt a desire to say more; he'd learned on Kesprit that Beverly Crusher often had quick, biting remarks that she kept to herself. He turned to leave before either of them could have a chance to say more.

Now Troi stood up as well, her blue dress falling around her as she rose. "I don't think it's a good idea to speak to the Minarans right now," she told him, half-blocking his way.

"Counselor," he looked down at her. "I don't, I can't know exactly what the Minaran thinks about all of this. But I do know how she feels; and I know that in some ways she was just as injured from the this experience as I was. I will not simply leave her to mend herself afterwards." He took another step but Troi persisted.

"She might want to be left alone."

He nodded. "And that would be the worst injury of all." He left and Troi followed.

**

* * *

o o o End Part 5**


	6. Chapter 6

**LESSONS LEARNED**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

o o o Part 6**

The door to the Minarans' quarters opened. The male stood there in the doorway of the darkened room. The lines about his eyes seemed to have deepened, his gray hair was mussed, and his yellow and blue shirt hung limply from his thin shoulders. The youth seemed to have left him. Troi felt the weariness, the sadness in him. And the feeling curiously echoed in the captain next to her. But outwardly, only the rigidity of Picard's features betrayed the emotions that he was now prey to.

"I wanted to..." Picard began. The male held up his hand and gently laid his palm on the captain's chest. Picard swallowed, his mouth closed tightly over anything else that might spill out.

The male's feature's softened, his lips forming a slow, sad smile. His hand rose until his fingers lightly touched the underside of the captain's chin. Picard swallowed again, twice. Troi sensed an enormous amount of tension draining from the Minaran, and building up within Picard, as if the captain were willingly taking on the effect of any harm he might have caused.

The Minaran's shoulders relaxed, his head fell forward, his eyes closed. He put his other hand on the captain's shoulder, as if to lean on him. After a moment, during which the captain barely moved, his face remaining strained but unmoving, the Minaran looked up. Picard opened his mouth to speak, but the Minaran's hand went from his chin to cover his lips. Then, eyes glittering with tears, he turned to the betazed.

"You understand." She spoke. The male nodded, then lowered his head as if in guilt. His emotions reached her as clearly as if he had spoken them; the sad aftermath of a monstrous clash of cultures that in hindsight, need never have happened. His hand left Picard's lips and gracefully swept toward her. She took the hand he offered her in her own. He welcomed her touch, his empathy more articulate than simple words.

He took his hand from Picard's shoulder, stepped back into the doorway and drew them inside.

In the dim light they could barely see the shapes and lumps of furniture within. One lump stirred and separated itself from the others. The smaller Minaran female advanced, her caftan silently fluttering like a flag in a stiff breeze. Its pink and orange hues bled away in the gloom, it dimly glittered as she rushed up to them.

She stopped in front of Picard.

Hands up as if to ward off a demon, she barred his way with her body even as Troi sensed her fierce determination to hold back what she saw as evil.

The male intervened. His long arms reached out, took her wrists and pulled her aside. Shocked and horrified, she writhed in his grasp. Her struggle conveyed her response to the male in a weird, silent ballet.

Picard stepped forward and raised his hand to her. She turned, saw his gesture and shrank back, her nerve to face him utterly broken. He lowered his hand and she retreated with the male.

Troi watched while Picard approached the taller Minaran female, standing at the window. She faced the stars, her back to him. He waited in the dark behind her.

She turned her head, peeking around at him. He wasn't going to go away, She turned the rest of the way around.

"You're the leader." He took a step, advancing so that they were only a few centimeters from touching. Still restrained by the male, the smaller female stretched out her arms to her friend and then pulled them back to hug her chest, as if she were struggling against a storm that she couldn't fight. The taller female did not retreat; her back straightened as a tall, proud pine tree ready to snap at its base in a strong gale.

"It's not easy. Admitting you've been hurt. It never is." Picard spoke softly, keeping the tension he felt, the queasy dread that came from anticipating something horrible, away from his words.

"But, I've found," he said half to her, half to himself, "from painful experience, that it must be shared, if it is to heal." He could hardly see her features, faint impressions of black on black, her head silhouetted against the rushing stars in the view port. But he could feel her eyes on him. He cleared his throat. "It's hard, accepting help, support from those who depended on you. But, if you don't, it gets worse." His voice slipped, roughened with this admission. He grimly smiled to himself. "Much worse. And you only end up hurting...more than yourself."

She stayed silent, still, an unmoving black cut-out. He inhaled audibly. She didn't want him there, but she couldn't look away. He thought about lying in sickbay, less than a hour ago, stammering to Beverly Crusher, describing in painful detail what had happened, and finding out that he couldn't keep the emotions around and within him out of his narrative. He'd had to keep stopping, scrape together some semblance of composure before going on. On top of all the turmoil sudden empathy had stirred up, he burned with indignation from needing the compassion and patience he felt from her and Deanna Troi while he'd initially and, all too visibly, sorted through the maelstrom. And then he'd had to sit and endure an admission that he'd been so severely affected to Commander Riker and Lieutenant Worf, two people to whom he least wished to reveal such an injury.

The Minaran gasped. She fell to her knees. He felt her breath on his body. But she didn't touch him. He stared out the view port, grief and hurt rushing toward him like the stars outside. He stepped back. The other Minarans were there, swiftly coming to answer their companion's need. They knelt together, the taller female rocking back and forth, the others following her motion. He could feel the intensity of their support. _When has anyone ever done that for me?_ He couldn't think of a single time. He turned away. There was no reason to stay. Not now.

They left. Picard marched down the corridor, Troi behind him and following him into the turbolift. He stood in the center of the lift, back to the door.

"Deck Five." His voice cracked.

"Computer halt," Troi commanded after the car had barely moved. She touched his shoulder. He bowed his head and staggered to the side of the turbolift. Shoulder to the wall, he slowly slid to the floor. Tears streamed from his eyes, his shoulders shaking, he sobbed quietly. He couldn't tolerate the idea of loud wailing.

Troi knelt beside him and gently took him in her arms so that his head rested on her shoulder. He stiffened, but didn't pull away. Affront to his dignity or not, he knew that the physical contact would help. Troi had done this before. '_Why did I think otherwise? That no one had ever done this for me?_' he wondered. _Was it the Minaran, or my own self-pity?_

"Deanna, I don't like this."

"I know," she agreed. She gently stroked his head. He snuffled rather more loudly than he cared to. His nose was running and he didn't have anything to wipe it with. He finally settled for using the cuff of his sleeve to keep it from running into Troi's hair.

He stayed there, his head on her shoulder and tried to relax. The hurt and shame abated, but the tension stayed. He felt watched and surrounded. It puzzled him; it was difficult to stay still. Finally, his discomfort forced him to move and he lifted his head.

He looked straight into Troi's eyes and felt surprise. It seemed as if he'd never looked so closely at her endlessly black eyes before. There was a peculiar depth to them as if there were a multiplicity of persons behind them. Random memories tumbled through his mind, memories of Troi, missions, conversations, thoughts. None of them were overwhelming, but the quantity surprised him. He couldn't stop it.

She spoke, but he didn't catch it.

"What?"

"Close your eyes," she repeated. He did so. "Now just take slow, deep breaths. Don't think of anything." She placed her hands on his shoulders. "Don't think about anything. Just let your mind drift." It was impossible for him to not think; memories and feelings came like a repeating tune caught in his mind. Dinner conversations, disagreements in staff meetings, discussions in his ready room. But closing his eyes helped, as if he'd stolen a place for the unwanted thoughts to go to. They slowed. Troi continued speaking and the deep, slow tone of her voice helped, too. A formal reception, a second cup of tea in the afternoon, a long walk on the holodeck months ago. He sat back letting his head fall back to rest against the wall.

"Hmm?" Troi had said something, addressing him, but he hadn't been listening.

"That wasn't intentional."

"I don't know what 'that' was," he admitted.

"You were picking up what I normally sense. It magnified the Minaran empathy you're experiencing."

"Like a feedback loop?" he speculated.

"Something like that." She nodded.

He sighed. "You can't tell me you go through this all the time, Deanna. I feel as if I'm in a crowd. I can't be alone." He waved his hands at the bare, circular interior of the turbolift. "Even here."

"You aren't," she reminded.

"Yes, but even in a crowd I have some sense of privacy. Now I can't even think without feeling as it's being overheard," he complained, annoyed at his predicament. He brought his knees up and rested his arms on them.

"I don't even have any perception of...of the presence of other people," he continued. "I've experienced telepathy before. I know what that's supposed to be like. This is just...nervousness, as if I'm expecting something bad to happen all the time."

"You don't sense any individual emotions then?" Troi asked.

"Well, some, of course, but...if I didn't know any better, if I didn't know who it was coming from, it doesn't feel any different from...me." He stared at the opposite wall with an expression of relief to have at least attached a definition to the uneasiness he'd been feeling. It wasn't going to be that simple to separate himself from the feelings around him after all.

He turned to her. "You warned me about this, didn't you?"

She nodded and leaned back on the curving wall next to him. The crisis has subsided. For a brief instant Picard had become utterly caught up in the emotional confusion pouring in on him. She'd felt a part of it, her empathic senses enhanced by the effect. It had been exhilarating. But for him, it had been overwhelming, his own personal self-control ill-equipped to handle it.

Picard glanced at her. She looked entirely too pleased about her prediction to him. He looked away for fear of getting tangled up in the Betazoid's empathic senses again.

"It isn't just the emotions you have to watch out for," she told him. "This will also stimulate memories and moods. And while you may think you know where it's coming from, you can't be sure. Most of the time you'll be aware of the people nearest to you most. But you could also be picking up a thought or feeling from anywhere on the ship." He nodded. She had told him this before as well, but he hadn't realized what it would mean until that moment.

"I suppose I'll have to watch my emotions rather closely then."

Troi shrugged. "That shouldn't be difficult. You do that all the time anyway."

"Is that a criticism?"

She shook her head and smiled. "No. It's part of your personality. Part of what makes you, you." He opened his mouth to answer.

**Bree-ee-ee-eet** "All right, Turbolift Fourteen, what the hell are you doing in there?" The sudden jarring voice cut through the air like a stack of dishes dropped in a library.

Troi didn't know who it was. She started to answer with an annoyed rebuke, but Picard signalled for her to say nothing. He knew who it was. Last month he'd co-signed a ship wide-memo with Lieutenant Commander LaForge and Lieutenant Fairfax about the acceptable uses of the turbolifts. The unwelcome voice belonged to Lieutenant Fairfax.

For the past eight months, he had been in charge of turbolift maintenance, and being a very serious engineer, he had ruthlessly cracked down on any abuses within his authority. Chief among those was the chronic appropriation of the turbolifts for other than transportation.

It had been going on ever since the _Enterprise_ had been commissioned. Picard even did it on occasion. When a sudden need arose for a quick, private discussion there was no better place on the ship for it than in a turbolift stopped between decks. He didn't do it often, but when over a thousand people did it 'every now and then' the cumulative effect caused occasional, annoying delays. The final straw for Fairfax had been a trio of teenagers who had staged a picnic, complete with sandwiches, snacks and sodas spread out on a blanket on the floor of a commandeered lift. It had gone on for forty-five minutes before Worf had finally walked in on it. Soon after that the memo had been issued listing regulations regarding the proper and improper uses of the turbolifts.

The intensity of the moment having been shattered, Picard chuckled. Fairfax had obviously been foolish enough to berate the occupants of the errant lift without checking with the computer to see who it was.

"Is there a problem, Mr. Fairfax?" he asked in a firm, authoritative voice. Down in engineering, working on the gamma shift, Fairfax froze and gulped.

"Uh, no, sir." Half a dozen excuses, apologies and comments about captains taking their own orders whizzed through his mind. He voiced none of them. When in doubt, say nothing.

The strategy worked. After a silent moment, "Very good. Carry on, Mr. Fairfax. Picard out."

Fairfax let his breath out. After another minute the yellow lift blip on his intra-ship map moved on its way.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

"All right, that's it!" Margo Szokski burst into the room.

Faith Szokski and her overnight, best friend Monique turned off their hand lights and ducked under the covers, but they'd been caught. Faith's mother brought the room lights up and tore the blankets away.

"This is the seventh time I've told you two to go to bed..." The scolding commenced over their repeated and sincere promises that they'd go to bed this time. Faith's mother was ruthless. She made Monique get up, put her robe and shoes on and pack up her clothes, which she did tearfully. "Mom, we didn't do..." Faith began after her best friend had finished.

"I gave you two plenty of chances to do as you were told..." They got another scolding. But the worst was yet to come. Faith's mother called Monique's parents on the intercom, finalizing the horrible verdict. She hustled the two reluctant children out, Monique to return to her parents and Faith to apologize to the other adults for getting them up.

Hastily, Captain Picard ducked behind a corner. Fortunately, mother and children headed in the opposite direction. He felt a twinge of satisfaction. In spite of Troi's warning that this empathy was not directional, he'd felt certain that he could find at least one source of his unwanted emotional input and the outburst in the corridor bore him out.

But what good did it do him? He couldn't just order everyone on the ship to please stop emoting until this wore off.

He checked the time. It was 0214. He walked down the darkened and empty corridor. This was the fourth major outburst (and dozens of minor ones it seemed) that he'd sensed since Troi had left him in his quarters. After laying sleepless in bed for over an hour he'd finally gotten up and gotten dressed again, determined that if he couldn't rest, he would at least track some of them down. Most led to closed crew quarters doors or they'd subsided before he could determine which deck they were on. What were they all doing? It was the middle of the night, but enough fear, anger, passion and joy filtered through to him to keep him from even thinking about getting any sleep. What would it be like when morning came?

**

* * *

o o o End Part 6**


	7. Chapter 7

**LESSONS LEARNED**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

o o o Part 7**

Ryan Jorge stared, desolate and grievously frustrated, at his computer screen. He'd gotten up at 0400 to work on this before class and he still didn't have an answer to hand in. He'd stayed up until 2330 the night before until his parents had demanded he go to bed. But he'd set the alarm early and snuck out to do his school work in the open study room.

His only hope lay in that as of 2230 the previous night no one else in his quantum mechanics class had solved any of this problem set either. And if nobody had solved them there was a chance that the Lieutenant would...

He heard a noise, a shuffling of boots on the carpet.

Ryan turned. There was no rule against him being in the open study hall so early, but he did not wish to explain to any insincerely sympathetic adults the source of his current despair.

He just spotted a familiar figure disappearing around a corner. He froze. He couldn't imagine why Captain Picard would be down in the school area at any time, but there was no mistaking the red uniform jacket, bald head and short gray hair. Would he have to explain his scrawled half-answers to a disapproving captain? He waited, but his visitor seemed to have gone.

Slowly, he turned back to his problem set. Maybe nobody else had solved it. _Please_, he hoped.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

On the holodeck, Lt. Worf slipped a spiked metal glove over his fist and tested its weight. Perfect. He growled with satisfaction, anticipating the violent confrontation, baring his large, jagged Klingon teeth. He had just enough time for a good, brisk workout before going on duty. He would taste blood...

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Commander Riker arrived early on the Bridge for the alpha watch at 0600. He accepted the day watch from the night duty officer. He'd had a terrible night and the morning seemed to be of the same flavor when Lt. Tallie told him that Captain Picard had been in his ready room for over an hour.

Riker sat down in the command chair and hesitated about reporting to the captain. Worf, at his post, was unhappily reminded of his failure of the previous evening as he stared down at Riker's head from his station. He'd seriously underestimated these Minarans. One of them had attacked the captain while he'd been lead off on a false trail. Obviously these aliens weren't capable of mounting a planned assault, but they could still cause trouble.

Riker got up and swiftly strolled over to the door to the captain's ready room.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Captain Picard turned off the ship's status report on his screen. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. It was getting worse.

He'd gotten no sleep at all. His mind had refused to be still; it kept churning over random thoughts. Finally, after pacing the length of the ship tracking down the sources of his discomfort, he'd gone to his ready room. If he couldn't rest from the lovers, the anxious teenagers and the angry parents who vented their passions in the middle of the night then he would at least get some work done.

But now it was becoming increasingly difficult to concentrate on anything. An hour ago he'd felt an overwhelming and irrational loathing for the lion fish in his office. He'd actually imagined gnashing it's soft, scaled body between his teeth as he'd stared at it peacefully swimming in the circular view of the tank inset in the wall. That had been exactly the same time Lieutenant Worf had been exercising on the holodeck. He'd checked with the computer. He could feel the Klingon's predator nature on the Bridge beyond the door to his ready room, and he'd known exactly when his security chief had arrived for his shift. Now he knew why the Minarans avoided the Klingon whenever they could.

He touched a control of his computer screen and a glowing outline map of the _Enterprise_ appeared on the small black screen on his desk. Little red dots scurried within the yellow lines of the ship's boundaries. There were twice as many as there had been half an hour ago when Picard had first called up the map. It linked directly to the internal sensors and indicated the activity level of people on the ship.

The night before he'd thought he was getting used to the nervous tension created by his unwanted empathy. But now he knew that he'd only been adjusting to the relative calm of the night shift when four fifths of the ship's personnel were asleep. The increasing wakefulness of the other eight hundred people as they got up and went about their morning routines multiplied his discomfort exponentially.

He tried taking deep breaths. He tried sipping his cup of tea, his fourth that morning. More little red dots appeared and wandered about with the others on his screen. The door chime sounded. He jumped.

"Come." He straightened and clicked off the display.

Commander Riker entered. He positioned himself at attention, centering himself in front of Picard's desk.

"Sir," he began formally. "I want to apologize for what happened last night."

Picard felt guilt, inwardly focused anger.

"Commander," Picard responded, keeping his face neutral.

Riker relaxed his stance enough to look his captain in the eye. "I behaved very unprofessionally last night, sir." Picard stared stonily back.

Riker didn't regret sleeping with the Minaran. She'd done nothing to indicate that she would force herself on another person. But he cringed inside when he remembered how he'd been willing to causally leave her where she was when he'd been told she was in Captain Picard's quarters. What she'd attempted had been nothing less than rape and he'd almost stood by and ignorantly let it happen. At the time, it had seemed amusing to think of how the Minaran would put a sensual dent in the captain's seemingly impenetrable armor of dignity.

"You wish to clarify that statement?" Picard asked, putting his elbows on the desk and carefully folding his hands before him. Outwardly he remained calm, but the memory of being called up to the superintendent's office when he was an Academy cadet flashed across his mind.

"When Mr. Worf informed me that he'd left the Minaran with you, I assumed that you would...enjoy her company. I didn't think she meant any harm."

"She didn't." Picard rested his upper lip against the edge of his folded hands before continuing. Doctor Crusher had mentioned Riker's initial reaction to hearing that Picard was alone with the Minaran.

"I trust, you understand now, that not everyone would enjoy themselves given similar circumstances." The captain perfectly enunciated each word.

Riker swallowed. "Yes, sir," he responded quietly.

"We've had this discussion before." Picard internally focused on the first time his first officer's sexual inclinations had annoyed him. A few years ago Riker, Counselor Troi and Doctor Crusher had organized a conspiracy to pack the captain off on a vacation to Risa, the first officer's favorite planet of indulgence. Picard had actually had a good time; an adventurous treasure hunt and a quick romance with a willful and shady archaeologist, who, last he'd heard was now digging up her illegal prospects with Ferengi partners. He had never admitted to anyone that Riker had been absolutely correct to take the initiative to get him off the ship; he'd been horribly overworked and in desperate need of a rest. But Picard didn't care for being told by his crew when he needed a break, especially when they were right. The captain fueled his annoyance with the memory, but he also felt bits of Riker's self-chastisement creeping in as well.

"I had thought," he began civilly, "that we understood that you have your hobbies." Picard gestured once toward his first officer. "And I have mine." The last time this had come up was after Riker's last visit to Risa where he'd gotten brainwashed by a Ktarian seductress. He'd brought the Ktarian sub-liminal mind control device, contained in an optical input game, back with him to the ship and within days the entire ship had become involved until Data, who was unaffected, had figured out how to reverse the effect.

In retrospect, it seemed to Picard that nothing good had come from that planet. He was half-tempted to ban Riker or anyone else on the crew from ever going Risa again. But he loathed officers who dictated the personal activities of subordinates and he didn't have the authority to do it, anyway.

As far as visiting alien mind-takeovers went, the Ktarian incident had been fairly mild to Picard. He'd spent most of the time blissfully playing the idiotic game alone in his ready room. Fifteen years ago, when he'd commanded the _Stargazer_, he'd made the mistake of inviting two archeological scholars aboard. They'd turned out to be technological spies. With a personality overlay projector, they'd managed to siphon off a great deal of classified Starfleet information. They were only caught when, through an unlikely mishap and their own carelessness, they accidently overlapped Picard's consciousness with that of his communications officer's unauthorized pet. So, for a period of about three hours he'd thought he was a cat. He gritted his teeth as he recollected his then first officer trying to lure him out from under the desk in his quarters with a bowl of cream. 'Heeeeeeeeeere Kittykittykittykitty...'

Picard icily stared at Riker. He'd lost his train of thought. Riker's own embarrassment empathically inspired the remembrance of a similar emotion from his own past. He inhaled and crossed his legs.

"We'll reach the Minarans' home world by 0900 tomorrow. I expect that you will make sure that there will be no further misunderstandings between now and then?" He lowered his hands.

"Yes, sir." Riker nodded, but otherwise stayed at attention. The embarrassment diminished. Picard felt a sudden desire to finish with his first officer and get some work done.

"Dismissed." Riker turned and left.

Picard sighed, got up and went to the lavatory. Four cups of tea had finally gotten to him. His hands didn't start shaking until he was washing them. His stomach flip-flopped. His nervousness returned.

He suddenly realized that for a brief period, it had subsided to a level where he'd been able to ignore it.

"Riker?" he said out loud to himself. No, it hadn't been Riker in particular who'd lessened the empathic chaos. While his attention had been focused on his first officer the pervasive insult of every stray emotion wandering around the ship had nearly vanished. He put the towel down and left the lavatory.

**

* * *

o o o End Part 7**


	8. Chapter 8

**LESSONS LEARNED**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

o o o Part 8**

"Come on." Doctor Crusher put her instruments down.

"What?" Picard asked, lying on the examination table.

She motioned for him to get up. He stood, and tugged his gray uniform top and jacket into place. The other people in the room, doctor, nurse and patient, studiously ignored their leaving. She led him to a small, private examination room and then continued her scans. He seemed less stiff and nervous there than he had been in the main examination room.

"You didn't say it was this bad," she told him.

"It wasn't this bad last night." He jumped when she touched him. The room they were in seemed unnaturally dark and small to him. And he was getting a headache. He grimaced and squirmed. Doctor Crusher laid her hand on his forehead.

"Lie still."

He waited while she ran through her tests. She focused the brain scan on her restless patient. The levels of activity measured lower than expected. She leaned forward and adjusted the instrument. They went up again. The captain moved his head, again.

"Hey," she put her hand on the top of his head to remind him that she wasn't finished. The levels went down.

"Wait a minute..."

"What?" The captain moved his head, but his brain activity didn't change.

The doctor sat still, her fingers still touching him. Her indicators stayed down. Slowly, she withdrew her hand. He didn't move. His brain activity levels crept upward.

She picked up the tricorder, checked its link to the scanner and walked around the examination table. She passed it over his chest, as if that were the part of him that she wished to scan. At the same time she lightly laid her hand on his stomach, just below the rib cage. Obediently this time, the brain activity indicators went down again.

"That's interesting."

"What?"

"Lie still," she told him. She went back to the scanner controls and modified the scan. This time she let her hand rest on forehead.

He tensed his shoulders and then let them relax. The lights above glared down at him, perfect illumination for the physician, but uncomfortable for the patient. His scalp felt sweaty under the doctor's warm, dry palm. He shifted and stretched in place. The edge of his collar rubbed against the skin of his neck and he tiled his head back on the pillow away from it.

"Hey."

He opened his eyes and wondered when he'd closed them. He felt Doctor Crusher's hand on his cheek and without thinking about it he smiled up at the face he saw above him.

"Don't go to sleep here." She helped him to sit up.

He rubbed his temples and shook his head. "I've had sleepless nights before. I've never been this tired from it."

"The Minaran used your own bio-energy to create the empathic neuro-pathways and that pretty much drained your reserves. How do you feel?"

"Tired. You have a prognosis now, Doctor?"

"Your volume of affected brain tissue has gone down by almost three percent since last night."

"Gone down?" Surprised, he looked up at her. She nodded and put her hands in the her pockets.

"The level of activity has gone up about two thousand percent. But the affected area has fallen off as predicted."

"Hmmmmmm, I couldn't tell."

"It also seems that you have a primary empathic nervous system response that's quite similar to the Minarans."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that you're right about the emotions of people closer to you drowning out the others. But the effect is increased by about two orders of magnitude by physical contact."

"Why didn't you spot this last night?" he asked, annoyed that she'd sprung something new on him.

"Because your nervous system isn't actually involved. Your brain just thinks it is. Even the Minarans couldn't affect your cell structure that much." Her hand patted his knee. He stared down at it. _Physical contact?_ He looked back at her.

"Does this mean you have to hold my hand to get me through this?"

"Maybe." She withdrew her hand and stood back, just out of reach. He slid off the examination table, straightened his uniform and without asking her permission, headed for the door.

He turned down an inner corridor and headed for the exit. A med tech brushed passed him, hurrying in the opposite direction. He stopped. Beverly Crusher approached from behind and touched his arm. He stiffened, but didn't turn. If he wanted to avoid emotional intensity, he thought to himself, then Sickbay was the worst place on the ship for him to be.

"Come on. I'll walk you to your quarters," she said quietly in his ear.

He resisted. "I have to go to the Bridge."

"I'll call and tell them you're unavailable." She locked her arm around his and guided him toward the door.

He didn't say anything in the turbolift, nor did he object when she led him down the corridor to his cabin. They entered together.

"Have you had anything to eat?"

"No. I'm not hungry."

"You've got to eat something," she told him. She left him to get breakfast from the replicator.

He sat down at the dining table and silently watched her set the table. She laid a bowl of grapefruit chunks and a plate of croissants and jam in front of him. He picked up his fork, took a bite of grapefruit and chewed it sullenly.

"Would you like some tea?"

"No." He'd had plenty of tea already that morning. "Water will be fine." She set the glass in front of him.

The croissant was more difficult to eat. Even with the jam it seemed hard to swallow. His nausea and headache were returning. He felt certain that somebody was angry at something nearby. He jumped. Doctor Crusher touched his shoulder.

"It's all right," she reassured him. She pulled up a chair and sat next to him. He brought his fists down, one of them still holding the fork, on the table. He sat there over his food, rigidly holding his temper in check. How could he even be sure it was his own temper? His fury subsided.

'It's not easy. Admitting you've been hurt. It never is,' he'd told the Minaran the previous night. Now it was his turn to take his own advice. He had no doubts that it was the physical contact with Doctor Crusher, still waiting patiently beside him, that at least partially shielded him from the emotional chaos around him.

He'd done this before, in a dream, in a twenty-five minute lifetime he'd received from a alien probe. He'd silently eat his dinner and then play his flute afterward, while an infinitely patient wife waited, waited for years for her marooned star traveller to notice the world around him, to share a love and intimacy that he'd never known or expected to ever want. That probe had been a time capsule left behind by a dying civilization, depositing its last gasp of hope into his mind. The people who'd built it had gone a thousand years ago when their sun went nova.

His eyes stared down at Beverly Crusher's hand resting next to his arm on the table. He wanted to place his hand over hers, but he didn't move.

Except for the voluminous notes and records he'd made of the experience, and what had been contained in the probe, precious little remained of that long gone civilization. The planet itself had been vaporized in the nova, like the Minarans' world had been. But nobody had been around to save the Kataan civilization that had launched that probe so long ago.

He took another bite of grapefruit and glanced at Beverly Crusher next to him, sipping her glass of juice. They'd had breakfast together so many times over the years that they had no need to make small talk. He smeared strawberry jam on another croissant and thought about the firelit night on Kesprit he'd spent with her, close, but not touching, their thoughts linked.

His empathy hadn't left him, it merely focused on one person, the doctor, dimming the nervous, emotional noise that would otherwise swamp him. Now his thoughts reflected those of the person sitting next to him. Or were they his own thoughts? He chewed another grapefruit chunk. At the very end of that imaginary lifetime on Kataan, he'd seen his wife, dead for many years. Even as she showed him the true nature of the probe, all he could think of at the moment was how much he wanted to be with her again. And now he felt the same dreadful desperate longing that he had then, and he suddenly thought of how similar it was to the emotions he'd felt from Beverly Crusher on Kesprit when he'd confessed his past love for her. He sipped his water and frowned at the washed-out, stale citrus aftertaste.

_No._ After a solidly bachelor career, it was unreasonable to presume that he could indulge an urge for companionship. Immediately after they'd returned from Kesprit and once the telepathic links had been removed, he'd suggested that they pursue the feelings that had been uncovered. But she had been cautions, not wanting to go any further than they had. He hadn't pressed her about it since then; not all the things that such a pursuit could lead to were good.

Nearly a year ago he'd foolishly plunged into a relationship and it had ended in bitter disaster. Without sparing any serious thought to how he could manage his captaincy around a love affair with a member of his crew, he'd allowed himself to fall in love. He'd been attracted to Lieutenant Commander Nella Darren when they'd first met. Nothing might have come of it if they hadn't started playing together, her on the piano keyboard, him with his Kataan flute. It had been the music that had so quickly and strongly rekindled the seductive yearning for companionship left within him by the Kataan probe.

He'd handled the relationship that had developed so badly.

The stresses and dangers inherent in starship duty had forced him to break it off. Lieutenant Commander Darren had left the ship. What had he been hoping for in the long run with her? A lover? Or marriage? _At my age?_

But his brother had surprised him when he'd married. He fondly remembered his sister-in-law, Marie. How had his brother ever found her? Jean-Luc had always thought of himself as solitary, but his older brother, Robert, was positively anti-social. Indeed, he had married relatively late in life; Robert had only been a few years younger then than he was now when he'd married...

He slammed his fork down next to his plate.

"Is something wrong?"

"No. No, I'm fine." He put his napkin over the few remains of croissant and grapefruit. Surely he'd eaten enough to satisfy the doctor.

"Feeling better?" He nodded. It did feel better to have food in his stomach. He could think. They both got up and silently cleared the table together. The activity seemed uncomfortably domestic to him.

"What?" He looked up.

Doctor Crusher pressed the disposal control on the replicator and the breakfast debris they'd loaded into it promptly vanished. "I said, I want you go to bed now."

He lowered his eyes to hide his initial shocked expression. He'd thought he'd heard her say 'come to bed'. But if she'd read the meaning of his reaction, she didn't show it.

He nodded.

She accompanied him to the door of the bedroom. He went to the bureau at the far end of the room, removed a set of pajamas and went into the lavatory to change. She sat down on the edge of the bed and waited.

_It isn't that bad,_ she thought to herself, half-hoping that his unwanted empathy would catch her sentiment as she had all during the meal. But it hadn't worked, or perhaps it had backfired in some way. Every time he'd appear to relax, he would start from some mysterious introspection and tense up again.

Alone now, she relaxed the tight hold she'd kept on her own thoughts during the meal. He had been so affected by the Minaran. The night before, lying in Sickbay, he had told her what had happened, his self control cracked and bleeding with the tears he couldn't control. Every time she'd touched him, he had cringed away from her. Since then she had been mentally distracting herself from too intimate thoughts with Sickbay shift schedules and parasitic growth test results.

He was recovered from the initial shock, but the invasive empathy still clung to him, the stress of the emotions of friends and strangers pulling on him. At the dining table she'd sat quietly, waiting, afraid to get too close, but knowing she couldn't leave.

She wanted to take him in her arms, to hold him. She smiled to herself and looked down at the shadowed, carpeted floor of the bedroom. That would be quite a prescription for her to hand down to him. He might even accept it, if she forced the issue. She just wasn't sure how she would handle it, how either of them would handle it, now that they knew how they felt about each other.

She remembered the look in Jean-Luc Picard's eyes, his face in the firelight, when he'd confessed his secret love for her on Kesprit. But she remembered even more strongly his thoughts, the longing, the innocent and so seductive infatuation. She felt it herself. But Beverly Crusher had learned to mistrust infatuation. She felt intensely aware of how deeply love change would their friendship and she was equally aware from his own thoughts on Kesprit that Jean-Luc Picard was not.

He was so sincere in his affection for her and she was absolutely positive that he really didn't understand, on an emotional level that if they got involved, they could easily spend the rest of their lives together.

She had known him for a long time and she knew that he'd never been able to carry on a long term relationship. He had even, in his younger years, run out on them. He would never intentionally hurt her, but that was the way all relationships started. She knew with an absolute certainty that their mutual attraction would not be enough. But what did they need? They were already close friends; they were compatible; they shared meals together daily; they worked well together. He was extremely...desirable, she admitted to herself. Wouldn't a closer relationship be a natural development now that they'd admitted that they were attracted to each other?

She sighed. _I'm acting like him, than he does about this. I'm trying to think this through with my head, so I don't get my heart bruised._

She crossed her legs and stared into the main room. So, neat and tidy, he kept his quarters the same way he maintained his personal life. They varied very little from the pastel-decorated standard issue _Enterprise_ furnishings; no furniture out of place, nothing loose lying about, the relics and mementos permitted to be displayed in public precisely laid out. All these things revealed only a formal image of the man who owned them. She liked these rooms. She liked the image they portrayed. She loved the man who lived in them; she was sure of that. But would they really be able to share their lives together? The fact that he'd hidden his love for her for 20 years and had only revealed it to her when he was forced to only added to her uncertainty about how he'd share a relationship.

_How many weeks did I make Jack wait for an answer when he asked me marry him? What am I waiting for now? For something to happen?_

_Well, something sure happened now._

Something was bound to happen, she realized, to him or to her, that would draw them together. Again. _I'm just putting it off. If I start talking to him about how I feel, I won't stop at just 'friends'._

She jumped. Something brushed her hair.

Barefoot, wearing gray, short pants and a low V-neck top, Picard had snuck up behind her.

"I'm sorry I startled you," he apologized.

"No, no," she denied she'd been surprised by him, and then wondered why it mattered. She wasn't worried that he might have overheard her thoughts, was she? He sat down next to her.

"Beverly, I'm sorry I've been so difficult this morning."

"You don't have anything to be sorry for, Jean-Luc. This wouldn't be easy for anybody to deal with."

"I, um," he fished about for words. "I just wanted to say that I do appreciate your help. I haven't been making this any easier."

"It's fine. That's what I'm here for."

He nodded. As soon as he'd entered the lavatory, he'd been seized by a horrible claustrophobia. He'd mechanically done his business, changed clothes and washed his hands and face. He'd kept thinking about a prison cell he'd endured for four days when, as a lieutenant, he'd been captured on a dangerous away team. The cell had been so small he couldn't even lie down. It had been completely black with rough, damp walls, like a crypt. And the creatures who'd captured him, had known nothing of the needs of a humanoid other than atmosphere and gravity. He'd been a real mess when they'd found him. Anger, sadness, hopelessness had alternated rapidly within him while he had changed clothes in the small lavatory.

Walking back into the bedroom had almost been like stepping from the bright lights of hell into a blissfully quiet heaven. Emotions washed over him like a cool breeze when he saw her sitting there waiting for him. Were they his own? Hers? Some unseen lover somewhere else on the ship?

He swallowed hard. If his feelings had an unknown source unrelated to himself or the her, why did he think they came from a lover? He didn't really mind so much that they might be his feelings; she knew about them. But he hated that he couldn't seem to control them.

He sat silently, sitting next to Doctor Crusher, having her to focus on and screen out the other stray feelings on the ship. It was happening again, that quicksand of attraction.

"Jean-Luc, I want you to get some rest. Would you like something to help you sleep?" she asked.

"No," he answered automatically. Then he reconsidered and nodded without facing her. If he could barely stand to be alone in the lavatory, how would he sleep when she left? Unless she stayed.

He clinched his fists. What was he thinking?

"Would you like me to stay?" she asked softly.

He turned on her so quickly that she started back. His expression was unreadable, intense. Not angry, not surprised. Wary perhaps? She stared evenly back at him, waiting for him to speak. But he didn't say anything. Cautiously she slipped her hand behind his elbow.

"Come on." She inclined her head toward the pillows. "Lie down." He hesitated, then lowered his gaze and slid onto the bed and stretched out on his back. She unfolded the blanket, covering him with it and then she sat down next to him. Removing the hypospray from the pocket of her medical jacket, she checked the setting on it and then pressed it to his neck. Then she ordered the computer to lower the room lights.

He stared upward at the ceiling gathering half-formed thoughts. He felt tired, weary but not sleepy. He could see the outline of Beverly Crusher above him at the corner of his vision, but he didn't trust himself to look toward her. _I shouldn't let this happen_, he told himself. But his thoughts strayed back to his brief relationship with Commander Nella Darren and the beautiful sound of the music they'd played together. When Nella had almost been killed on a dangerous away mission, he'd come to the bitter realization that it couldn't work. When he'd thought she'd been killed he'd retreated in numb shock, and he'd resolved that he would never allow himself to become so emotionally entangled. He'd thought that he could get away with it, with balancing his command around the vulnerabilities of love.

Beverly Crusher shifted position on the bed, her weight slightly tilting the mattress under him toward her.

Now he was thinking he would try it again. When he'd asked her what they should do about how they felt she'd been wary. He'd put a great deal of planning into laying out the dinner the night after they'd returned from Kesprit; the place settings, the menu, the candlelight. He'd planned it to be intimate, maybe even seductive. After she'd left, he'd realized the potential hazards that a relationship could bring.

But he wanted more than a close friendship. The pseudo-life he'd gained and lost from the Kataan probe had given him a taste of what it had been like to share an intimate relationship. And he missed it. His own life of commanding a starship now carried an empty quality to it that he secretly wanted to fill. That had been the beginning and end for his tie of love to Commander Darren.

When he'd thought on it, he realized that he and Nella hadn't really known each other very well at all in the brief time they'd had. Their love had been based upon the music they'd shared and their instant mutual attraction.

He and Beverly Crusher knew each other so well. They shared each others thoughts. There certainly wouldn't be any of the staff frictions that had arisen when Darren had run hard into Commander Riker's authority. But how could he ever hope to predict or prevent the hideous threat that she might be killed in the line of duty under his command?

And yet...

_What if I don't say anything more to her, and something does happen to one of us?_

He could hear Beverly Crusher next to him. Occasional gentle sounds of motion next to him. Eyes half closed, he continued to stare up at the darkened ceiling and listen for the little sounds she made.

Crusher sat quietly over him in the gloom and the dim, pale blue glow from the light panels on the window arches. As her eyes adjusted she saw him staring up at the ceiling. She laid her hand on his forehead, his skin was warm and smooth under her fingers. The injection she'd given him would block out the excess neural activity.

He seemed to lie there for a long time. She gently stroked his forehead with her fingertips. He relaxed, his eyes half-lidded, his expression content, almost smiling. But he didn't once look up toward her.

It was nearly twenty minutes before his eyes finally closed.

**

* * *

o o o End Part 8**


	9. Chapter 9

**LESSONS LEARNED**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

o o o Part 9**

The immeasurably distant stars whizzed by outside. He watched them. He'd moved the soft chair around so that it faced the view. In the next room his Small Friend comforted his Most-Strong Friend, now not quite so strong.

It could not have been foreseen. He'd wanted to know more of the Old Ones. Where did they come from? What distant star did his own people come from? Why had the Old Ones snatched them away from the star that had destroyed the Old World? The tales of the Times of the Deadly Sun still burned fresh, the memories passed on directly from parents to children. Only a few generations had passed since then. His people had come so close to total annihilation from things that they still did not understand in their own world. And there was so much for them to learn yet.

He hadn't thought clearly upon what could result from his quest. He could never have anticipated what would come of his journey with the Old One. Now all things around them were new. The people, the ship, the space outside. And no Old Ones. His original questions remained unfulfilled, buried underneath the confusion of new ones.

He continued to stare fixedly at the blackest of blacks beyond the clear barrier between it and his gloomy sanctuary. It still thrilled him. Beautiful and mysterious, it promised worlds beyond his imagining. Like the one he now resided in.

His excitement drifted to the thoughts of his two friends nearby. They accepted his joy for it's own sake, but sadly did not share it. Separated by walls they felt the comforting awareness of each other's presence like a whistle in the wind, but their deeper feelings could not travel beyond physical touch.

Something needed to be done; he knew this. He rose and went to the sliding portal. It opened. Surprised, the One who had been waiting outside turned and barred his way. He turned one way, then the other, but this Large-Blond One, who raised his hands and made sounds at him, blocked his path. The message was clear. He was not to leave.

The Large-Blond One touched the metal symbol on his chest to make sounds to the others. They both stayed in the doorway and waited until Others arrived.

The Hair-Face One frowned at him with his pale blue eyes. The Black-Eyes One made her sounds at him; she urged him to return to the rooms. He touched her. Among all these people, she alone could return their touch in kind. He responded to the alien feel of her with his own need to express his regrets. She accepted them. No offense had been taken.

He retreated back within the darkened room. They followed, leaving the Large-Blond One to wait outside.

Once again, with his arms and his body, he expressed his regrets. Offense had been done, and it's wounds remained open. The Black-Eyes One shook her head, a simple negative. They must wait. His shoulders slumped and he turned away from them. It was a very great hurt that had been done and not enough healing had come to it. It was the same within the next room where his friends lay close together. He could not will his Most-Strong Friend to rise from the hurt she dwelled upon, and his entreaties only caused more harm. Even the Black-Eyes One, with her limited senses, knew not to approach the door to their room.

The Hair-face One made sounds at her, low and deep. He'd learned that they assigned meanings to sounds, like symbols on a page. He hadn't learned how to distinguish the different sounds and relate them to individual thoughts. All the sounds ran together to him. He knew it would take much practice for him to decipher it. He had comprehended the differences between the sounds they assigned to themselves. Oddly enough, they hadn't assigned a single sound to him and he wondered why.

He faced the two aliens again. He would wait.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Deanna Troi touched the door chime to Captain Picard's cabin.

"Come," came the reply from the door's comm panel. She entered. Captain Picard stood up from the sofa next to the window. She walked over to him.

"I was wondering how you were feeling this afternoon." Her eyes travelled to the open books and the simple, shiny flute on the coffee table. She sat down.

"Better...I think," he answered, sitting back down on the sofa next to her.

"I see you've been busy."

He shrugged. "It helps, a little." He wanted her to go; he felt invaded, exposed like the words on the open pages before him. He closed the books and then picked them up. He fingered the pages, looking for his places in them to put the bookmarks.

"How?"

The two books in his lap slid down between his legs. He kept checking and re-checking the pages of the third, the biography of J.B. Fletcher. He couldn't find his place. "It's not quite so distracting. I think. And the headache's gone away." He only opened the book enough to peek at the corners of the pages. He didn't want Troi to see and maybe ask him why he was reading about a late twentieth century mystery writer who'd somehow managed to become involved in an average of one murder a week for a period of over ten years in the later part of her life. The book seemed terribly cheap and tawdry and he wondered why he'd chosen to read it in the first place. He slid the bookmark into the middle of its pages without finding his place.

"Doctor Crusher says that the effect is diminishing as expected. So, you shouldn't have to worry about it for more than a few days."

"I'm delighted." He didn't sound delighted. Sitting next to Counselor Troi had an entirely different effect on him than what he felt when he was alone with Doctor Crusher, or Commander Riker. If he focused his attention on Troi, he risked magnifying his empathy. "How are the Minarans?" He changed the subject, away from himself.

"The male wants to talk to you." He considered this.

"And the others?"

"The taller female is recovering. The other just wants to leave here as soon as possible."

Picard stacked the books back on the coffee table so that the titles faced away from Troi. He picked up his flute, got up and went over to his desk where he carefully laid it in it's wooden case.

"I think then, we should speak to him." They left together.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

He knew who was there even before the tone sounded. The portal opened. The Hairless Leader, followed by the Black-Eyes One, entered and presented themselves.

He approached and very slowly raised his hands. The Hairless Leader didn't move, but his eyes tracked every movement. Standing close enough to scent the other's skin, he let his fingertips touch the Hairless Leader's shoulders and then rise up to under his chin.

It had to be undone. His eyes widened with the realization of what he must do. His hands rose. His palms pressed upon the smooth skull. Through the layers of skin and bone he found the discord pulsing within. Tiny vibrations, clashing with the life energy that belonged there. Great sadness washed through him, spilling over into the other. The imprint of his Most-Strong Friend burned like an open wound.

The Black-Eyes One made fearful sounds at them.

The Hairless Leader gasped, realizing his meaning. He stared into the Hairless Leader's green-gray eyes. The expression in them urged him on as strongly as his thoughts did. The Black-Eyes One made more sounds and then she moved to pull his hands away. A quick movement and a sound from the Hairless Leader stopped their advance.

He reached for the shards of life energy that his Most-Strong Friend had created.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

"Doctor Crusher, report to the Minarans' quarters, immediately!"

Doctor Crusher looked up from the skinned knee of a careless botany specialist.

"What's happened?" She put her instruments down and nodded to her assistant.

"The Minaran male is trying to undo what the female did to the captain," Troi's excited voice explained.

"Damn."

The injured botany specialist watched her leave, snagging a medical kit on her way out. Another doctor, a Vulcan with a long face and no expression, came to tend his knee.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Doctor Crusher arrived in the Minarans' quarters just behind Riker, Worf and two security people.

Their legs curled up under them on the floor in the middle of the room, in the only lighted area, Captain Picard and the male Minaran faced each other. The doctor rushed forward. Kneeling, she put her medical kit down and took out her tricorder and scanner.

"Incredible," she whispered.

"What?" Riker demanded, standing right behind her. Opposite Crusher, Troi knelt close beside them like a person who might break in on a pair of dance partners.

"The Minaran's bio-energy is directly linked to his." She adjusted the scanner and pointed it at the unresponsive pair. "He's adapted his nervous system to the captain's."

"Commander!" Alerted by Worf's call, Riker turned. The two female Minaran's stood in the doorway of the other room. The taller one advanced on the pair. Worf stepped forward, but Riker stopped him. The Klingon held his place. What had they called him for if he was not to act?

She positioned herself behind the captain. Her fingertips came to rest on the crown of his head and slid down his smooth scalp. The shorter female shyly peeked around her bolder companion. Picard and the male Minaran remained motionless, eyes closed. The shorter female slowly extended a trembling hand that touched the gray hair on the side of the captain's head.

"Doctor?" Riker asked.

"Shhhh," she silenced him harshly. Intent upon her medical tricorder she waved him back. Riker moved to the side, so he could see the readout on her tricorder. The upper left portion of the display indicated an active brain function monitor. Two yellow and blue lines scrawled across the tricorder's tiny screen. The doctor's finger touched a button below it and green and purple lines joined the first two. Three lights on the left side started blinking. Movement caught Riker's attention.

Together, the Minarans withdrew, their hands leaving the captain with a graceful flourish. Picard exhaled audibly. Doctor Crusher's scanner whirred next to his temple.

"All brain functions have returned to normal. No extraneous activity at all." She put her hand on Picard's shoulder; he swayed slightly, but he seemed in no danger of collapsing.

"Are you all right, captain?"

Picard opened his eyes. The male Minaran smiled with pride back at him.

"Captain?"

Picard nodded. "I'm fine." A glad smile crept across his features.

"How do you feel, Captain?" Troi asked.

He nodded again. "Like myself, Counselor." Poised above him, the taller female smiled in wonder. Her hands returned to stroke the top of the smooth, rounded head below her with a gentle petting motion. Picard didn't seem to notice.

"Thank-you," he told the male kneeling before him. The Minaran raised his hands and pressed them to the captain's cheeks. Picard felt a light touch on his temple and his eyes shifted toward it. The shorter female withdrew her hand and then shyly touched him with her fingertips, and then pulled away again, as if she weren't sure if she liked the way he felt. The male lowered his hands and Picard turned his head to the smaller female. She tugged at the glittery pink and orange fabric draping her arms and bit her lip. She reached out again and tapped him on the nose with an index finger. Her two companions beamed at her.

Ensign Muli, standing with Lieutenant Ahkmir, behind Lieutenant Worf, stared in amazement. Last night the Minarans were attacking him, now they were all over Captain Picard, their hands moving gracefully about his head in an odd, silent dance. Apparently all was forgiven now. Muli saw Commander Riker grin and exchange looks with Counselor Troi, who knelt with Picard, the Minarans and Doctor Crusher. Muli couldn't see the doctor's face. Completely absorbed by the events before her and the displays on her tricorder, she had her back to him. Whatever had just happened must have been fascinating for the doctor.

A low, disgruntled growl escaped Worf.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Two hours later Lieutenant Worf reported to Commander Riker on the Bridge. The Minarans were secure and a guard was posted at their door. The two senior officers stood at Worf's station.

"We don't expect that they'll be much trouble before we arrive at Hilosk tomorrow," he remarked about the Minarans.

"Respectfully, sir, they were not expected to be 'much trouble' when they first arrived," Worf reminded in his deep baritone.

Still feeling at least partially responsible, Riker nodded solemnly. Apparently unwilling to part with the captain too soon, the Minarans with an escort from security, had followed him to Sickbay. They'd hovered nearby while Doctor Crusher had performed her examination of the captain and then pronounced him free of the Minaran empathy.

During this time the taller Minaran female had approached the first officer. Riker had responded formally, straightening to attention when she'd come near. She had stepped back and imitated him, holding her head up high and frowning seriously. She'd smiled mischievously when she'd seen his confused reaction. And then she'd stepped closer again and laid her hand on his chest. He'd felt her light touch, but no extraordinary sensation. Then she'd lowered it and put her hands behind her back. He'd grinned back at her. Picard, getting down from the examination table, had spotted them with a critical eye. Riker had self-consciously straightened again; the Minaran had imitated him again, but it seemed to the commander that her green eyes were a tiny bit defiant when she glanced back at the captain.

Then she'd stuck her hand out to Riker and he'd cautiously taken it. After giving it a brisk shake she released it. All the time she'd kept her eyes on Picard. Riker couldn't think of where she might have picked up this human gesture; he hadn't showed it to her, but any number of people on the ship could have. She'd inclined her head to the captain and smiling, he'd repeated the gesture back to her.

"We'll keep a guard on them," Riker told the Klingon, "just in case there are any more 'misunderstandings'. Mr. Worf, notify me immediately if there is any change in the Minarans' status or if they want to 'talk' to anyone before we reach Hilosk." He stepped away and then turned back. "Oh, and Doctor Crusher ordered Captain Picard to take the rest of the shift off." Worf acknowledged this and Riker strolled down to the command chair.

**

* * *

o o o End Part 9**


	10. Chapter 10

**LESSONS LEARNED**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

o o o Part 10**

The door chime to Captain Picard's quarters sounded.

"Come," Picard answered from his desk. He finished reviewing the second officer's log, marked his place in the log entries, and looked up.

Doctor Crusher, in uniform though without her usual medical jacket, faced him.

"Working late?" she asked a little critically. She'd told him to rest in his quarters when he'd left sickbay that afternoon, and he'd obviously loosely interpreted her instructions to rest.

Picard clicked his screen off and cleared his throat. "A bit," he replied. He indicated the chair across the desk from him. "Please, have a seat."

"Aren't we having dinner?" she asked, taking the empty chair opposite him.

Picard straightened his uniform tunic. There would be no seductive dinner before he spoke with her this time. Too much distraction, too much temptation for him to back away.

"Beverly..." he began. She leaned forward attentively and he stopped. This wasn't right. This wasn't a staff meeting or anything to do with ship's business, though he hadn't said it wouldn't be when he'd suggested that she stop by after she got off duty when he'd left sickbay.

He got up and motioned the doctor over to the couch. He sat down next to her.

"Beverly," he began. "I wanted to discuss what happened with me, with the Minaran empathy."

She laid her hand on his arm. "Jean-Luc, you don't have to say anything."

"Really?" She didn't answer. "Shouldn't I say something about what I felt." She stared back at him, suddenly terrified of what emotions he might have overheard from her. He looked away. "I never seem to. Not as much as I might."

They sat next to each other, their backs to the view port behind them, barely a centimeter apart on the sofa, but still not touching.

"Beverly," he said, turning toward her and trying to break the dull moodiness that had taken over the room. "This morning I...sensed," he borrowed that worn verb from Counselor Troi's usual descriptions, "that there was much more between us that we haven't spoken about. I kept thinking about...other people, and their relationships. And I kept thinking about Kesprit. And I couldn't tell, honestly, if those thoughts were coming from you or me."

Beverly Crusher lowered her eyes.

"I, um, guess I was thinking about that, too."

"You were?" He really sounded surprised and she smiled.

"Couldn't you tell?"

He smiled back. "No. I couldn't tell anything. I couldn't tell if it was you or me." He took her hand. "But I was fairly certain, when you stayed with me this morning that it was me who was thinking that maybe if we don't say something to each other about how we feel now, we might not get the chance later."

His large hands caressed hers. She looked down at them. _I should go. Before this goes too far. Give myself time to think._ But it seemed like she'd done all the thinking she could, turned over all the possible outcomes with no definitive conclusion. _No, I'm just stalling. If I wasn't going to go through with this I shouldn't have suggested dinner._

She felt his breath on her hair.

"Beverly..."

"Jean-Luc." She turned to him. His face was very close. She could smell his skin. "On Kesprit, I said we were friends. I...I don't want to lose that."

"And there's nothing more?"

"You know that isn't true." They sat so close that their noses almost touched. Her hands leaving his to rest lightly on his chest. "But if we go any further, it won't ever be the same again."

He touched her face, his fingers lightly brushing the smooth skin. She closed her eyes. He leaned forward and touched his lips to hers. She slid her arm around him. Her breast pressed against him and his arms went around her waist.

"Beverly, I don't want to you feel as if you're being pressured," he whispered.

She lowered her head to hide her amusement. _Now who's stalling?_ She nuzzled his cheek. She noticed the small, faint bumps of veins at his temples, accented by the lighted shadows from the starlight on his left side and the room's artificial lighting on his right. The gentle curve of his scalp diffusely reflected the overhead lights. His clipped, short, gray hair glinted just above and behind his ears. At this rate they were going to spent the night talking about how they felt about discussing their feelings for each other.

She tightened her grip around his waist and fell backward, pulling him forward. Surprised, he rolled off her almost too far. He caught himself from rolling off the couch into the coffee table. His legs tangled up with hers, he managed to get them up onto the sofa to keep his weight from pulling him off.

"What-?" He started to rise, but stopped himself when he saw the smirk on her face. He settled on his side, facing her where she nestled next to the back of the sofa. The couch was wide enough for them to lie together, if they lay on their sides, their heads resting on the soft incline of the pillows next to the armrest. Her fingers played on his chest and emboldened, he returned the gesture.

"Is that a 'yes?" he asked.

"That depends on what the question is." He kissed her, deeply, passionately.

"Have you been thinking about this all these years?" she asked when she paused to catch her breath.

"Mmm." She felt his lips on her cheek, kneading toward her own lips again. She laid her hand between them, on his chest.

"Jean-Luc," she demanded gently.

"Well." He caressed her side. "Not just this." She reached up and began stroking his temple.

"Me, too." He sighed, his body relaxing next to her. "I guess I never really ever expected that this could happen."

"Beverly." He licked his lips. "On Kesprit, I felt that you cared, that you wanted to hear me say what I did. But you hesitated, and it seemed to me that you were afraid and I-" She touched his lips, her fingertips cutting off his words.

"I know." He hand moved back to stroke the hair behind his ears. His lips curled with what looked to her like contentment. "There are so many things to consider beside how we feel about each other. And they're all complicated." Would they sleep together all the time? Occupy the same quarters? Pick up each other's hobbies? Would they abide by some tacit bond and refuse any other relationships? Speaking softly, she pondered the possibilities. Her fingers explored the back of his neck and his head rolled slightly on the pillow. She closed her eyes, her forehead touching his as if their closeness might bring their thoughts closer together. Her words trailed off and she lay for many minutes, just enjoying the feel of him next to her, the warmth of his body on hers.

She heard what sounded like a sigh from him and she smiled. "Jean-Luc..."

He had his eyes closed. She started to lift her head and stopped when the motion yanked on the hair that his head was resting on.

"Jean-Luc?" He was asleep.

She stared at him, not sure if she should be annoyed or not. She put her head back down on the pillow.

"Computer," she called as quietly as she could. An electronic, warbling chirp answered. "Lower the room lights." The room faded to darkness. Of course, he was tired. The Minarans had again used Picard's bio-energy, this time to remove the empathy created by the taller female. She'd recorded it with her medical scanners that afternoon. And she still needed to review the file. She would do it in the morning.

She considered getting up to get a blanket, but there was no way she could without waking him. She shifted to a more comfortable position on her side. With him right in front of her, she couldn't curl her legs up without bumping her knees into him, and they were both still wearing their boots.

How would they mention this new relationship to anyone else? Should they? If they slept together, how could they possibly keep it secret? And why should they worry about who knew anyway? Troi would detect it no matter what they chose to say. They would have to discuss this in the morning, over breakfast. She closed her eyes.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

In Sickbay, a medical monitor bleeped. Nurse Milner came in answer to it. Mona Tseng's temperature had gone down and the monitors showed that her infection was receding. Milner tapped his comm badge to alert Doctor Hill who was in the lab. Then he tapped his comm badge again.

"Sickbay to Doctor Crusher." No answer. It was late and he was probably waking her up.

"Sickbay to Doctor Crusher."

"Crusher here." He heard a grunt and a shush and noises like elbows and knees hitting hard surfaces.

"Mona Tseng's infection seems to be clearing. I've called Doctor Hill. You asked to be notified," he added hastily.

"Thank you, Crusher out."

Nurse Milner finished checking the bio scanners on the two other patients in Sickbay after Doctor Hill had come and gone when he heard the doors swoosh open again. He turned to see Doctor Crusher leading Captain Picard to the central examination table in the main room.

"Doctor?" He approached as she helped the captain up onto the table.

"Cranial patch," the doctor ordered without explanation. Milner went and returned with her request. Picard had settled himself, more or less, on the examination table.

"Lie still," Doctor Crusher ordered. She passed a scanner over his head and touched a swelling, bruise on his forehead.

"Ow," he said crossly, flinching away from her touch.

"Lie still," she repeated.

"I might have said the same thing to you."

"You're saying this is my fault?"

Milner stood there holding the cranial patch and waiting to be noticed.

"Well, if you hadn't moved, I wouldn't have fallen off." Captain Picard was looking up at the doctor. Crusher's eyes flicked at Milner and she extended her hand. He handed her the patch, briefly nodded and in response to her silent invitation for him to leave, left.

_Riding accident?_ Milner wondered. _In the middle of the night?_

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

"It's okay, it's okay," Chief O'Brien reassured.

The Minarans, now wearing the original clothes they'd arrived in, watched him skeptically while he again showed them the transporter controls. Commander Riker, outfitted with phaser and tricorder for an away team, obligingly stepped into the transporter chamber and positioned himself on one of the six glowing pads. With Counselor Troi encouraging the Minarans to watch, O'Brien set the controls and then energized the transporter. Before them, the transporter pads glowed above and below Riker. He began to glow from his middle outward, the black and red of his uniform sparkling bluish white and then he faded away. Captain Picard, Troi and Doctor Crusher, all in their regular uniforms with Crusher wearing her blue medical jacket over hers, looked on as O'Brien completed the demonstration and brought Commander Riker back.

The Minarans, particularly the male, studied the transporter without touching it. They looked at Commander Riker, who smiled and invited them to step into the chamber. Then they looked at each other. In unison, all three Minarans straightened and shook their heads.

"I don't think we should have been so accurate when we told them about the dematerialization part," O'Brien commented.

Picard sighed. Well, this wasn't the first time they'd had visitors, who having never seen a transporter before, refused to use it. They had arrived at Hilosk less than half an hour ago, but it seemed that the stop would be slightly longer than planned. He tapped his comm badge.

"Picard to Bridge."

"Data here."

"Mr. Data, the Minarans are reluctant to use the transporter. Commander Riker and Counselor Troi will take them down to Hilosk in a shuttlecraft. Have a shuttle prepared."

"Acknowledged."

They left and went to the hanger bay. By the time they got there, the hanger bay crew had brought a shuttle into launch position. Upon entering the familiar open space where they had first stepped aboard the starship, the Minarans walked right up to the waiting shuttle.

Riker reached for the door control on the shuttlecraft.

Something whined. It was a nasty, buzzing whine and it quickly got louder.

"Picard to Bridge!" the captain yelled, putting his hands up to protect his ears, but he could barely hear his own voice. He heard Data's voice faintly, drowned out in the din. Counselor Troi and the Minarans were already on their knees.

"Raise the shields!"

With an even louder dissonant tone and a flash of diffuse light, Doctor Crusher disappeared.

"Doctor!" Picard called. In quick succession the tone came again and the three Minarans disappeared, one by one. Troi fell to deck, her face obscured by her dark, curly hair as she writhed in pain before she vanished, too. Picard was on his knees now. This had been going on for far too long, why hadn't somebody raised the ship's shields?

"Mr. Data, raise the shields!" he demanded. Riker, his mouth moving, still stood leaning heavily against the hull of the shuttle. Picard couldn't make out the words.

There was a flash. And then nothing.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Ensign Alhahn, sitting at Ops on the Bridge, re-keyed the shield command and tried it again. She got an incomplete shield integrity message again.

"The shields are operative, sir, but something's blocking them." She kept her voice level, her eyes on the controls, as she reported to the android standing right behind her. She was sitting at Commander Data's usual post. The board showed that engineering was over-riding, trying to re-initiate the shields around the obstruction.

"There's some kind of beam coming from the planet." She read the sensor output. "It's blocking them." And then it disappeared; yellow levels went down, blackened and faded off of Alhahn's board.

"Shield's up," Lieutenant Worf finally announced.

Data nodded acknowledgement.

"Data to Captain Picard." There was no answer.

**

* * *

o o o End Part 10**


	11. Chapter 11

**LESSONS LEARNED**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

o o o Part 11**

Commander Riker's head hurt and it didn't help that he was lying on his back on a flat, hard floor. He opened his eyes and saw absolute blackness above him. He rolled his head to the side, the unyielding floor grinding into the back of his skull. A glowing, yellow bar hummed above him in the darkness.

Riker put his hand up to cushion the back of his head and slowly sat up. The tricorder and phaser in the pouches at his waist pressed into his middle as he did so. Surprised they were still there, he tugged his uniform back into place, relieving their weight against him.

He squinted at the unfamiliar surroundings. The glowing yellow bar connected to other yellow bars that formed the outline of a box around him. Also in the box, lying on their backs on the floor, on either side of him were Doctor Crusher and Deanna Troi. Alone amidst the blackness before him, stood a collection of unfamiliar and angular equipment, tables and half-arches. Riker couldn't see any light sources anywhere, but all the odds and ends before him were lit from above with a comfortable white light. Even so, the floor he sat on remained perfectly black, not warm, not cool and smooth as a tabletop; the collection of objects stood out in the void like a surreal laboratory.

"Doctor?" Riker leaned over her, his hand cupping her chin. "Doctor?" Her eyes opened a crack, then, blinking, a little wider.

"Ooooooh." She groaned and stirred. Riker helped her to sit.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I think so. What happened?" she asked as she sat up, rubbing her temple.

"Just an educated guess, I'd say we're somebody's 'guests'." Riker had already noted the sinister similarity of their surroundings to the images recorded by that previous _Enterprise_ away team a hundred years ago. As the doctor looked around, she noticed the same thing.

Riker turned and slid over to Counselor Troi. Her eyes were already open and he helped her sit up as well. Doctor Crusher unsteadily got to her feet.

"Will." Riker followed the Doctor's gaze where she was pointing. Amidst the array of gray and tan objects was a long table mounted on a single angular support. Captain Picard lay on it. Riker rose, helping Troi up as well. Crusher took a step toward it, but Riker stopped her.

"Wait." He cautiously approached the square of glowing, humming yellow bars that separated them from the captain. He extended a hand to the invisible face of the outlined square. The air glowed an uneven whitish-yellow and stung his fingers like an electric shock. He jerked his hand back and shook it. Crusher checked his hand, but it was unhurt.

"That's not going to work," Riker muttered. They all looked about, but the yellow bars and the force field stretching between them formed a perfect cube, a perfect cage around the three. He took out his phaser, released the safety and looked for something to shoot at. The glowing outline of their prison didn't have any visible source. No instrumentation, no convenient locking mechanism. Neither Crusher, with her tricorder, nor Troi, with Riker's could find any either. Riker waved his companions to the opposite corner and took aim at the floor corner nearest him. It was one of the dumbest things a person could do, fire a phaser at an unknown force field. But they'd already used up all the smart alternatives.

Riker pressed the trigger. Nothing happened. The commander checked the controls and tried again, with the same result.

"Wonderful," Riker muttered. He holstered the useless weapon. Troi and Crusher returned to his side. Picard still lay unmoving on the table.

"Captain!" Riker tried calling.

"Captain!" Crusher joined in.

They heard a faint buzzing that quickly filled the air. It abruptly ended with a loud electronic boing and a flash. Two Vians, in glittering green, floor-length garments, appeared next to the table.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

"Captain!"

Picard moved his head. It ached and his temples throbbed. He opened his eyes and started. Some pale species of alien was looking down at him. He felt a touch at the back of his neck, followed by an intense buzzing sound and a flash and he plummeted into darkness.

He couldn't feel anything except a sickening, numbing, falling sensation. No body, no hands, no feet to fight his way through the void; he had nothing to reference his physical status with. Except sound. He heard familiar voices, words.

"I'm Commander Riker...you want..."

"...returned the Minarans..."

"...no harm..."

The disorientation and vertigo lessened, allowing him to concentrate on the voices of Riker, Troi and Crusher. Something buzzed and Riker cried out with the thumping of arms and legs hitting the ground.

"What are you doing to him?" This came from Doctor Crusher.

Vians. The alien he'd glimpsed had been a Vian. The high forehead and vertical brow ridges were quite like those of the body that lay in Doctor Crusher's laboratory, except this one was alive.

"Stop!" This came from Commander Riker. Crusher and Troi joined in. Picard's senses were numb. His freefall had ended, but he still couldn't feel anything beyond a formless cold. The voices he heard went on, more insistent, urgent. They went unanswered. Whatever the Vians were doing to him did not seem to be affecting his consciousness, but beyond that he couldn't tell. Something whirred very close to his head.

"Help us, please," Deanna Troi pleaded. Her tone had changed. She wasn't addressing the Vians.

"Help us. Please stop them."

"Stop them." Riker and Crusher joined in.

He heard a noise, a subtle shifting of movement, of fabric on fabric. Bodies rustled together and thumped against things.

Somebody cried out.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

"We've scanned the whole planet and there's no sign of them. But unless they have cloaked ships, and we didn't see any evidence that they might from the one we looked at, we're sure that they haven't been taken off the planet," Geordi LaForge admitted. Lieutenant Commander Data sat at the head of the conference table, where Captain Picard usually sat. Data had reviewed all of the pertinent details of their efforts to retrieve their missing crew members, but for the sake of discussion for the others attending the meeting, the android felt it necessary to review them out loud. Lieutenant Worf, Science Officer Zakarov, Lieutenant Barclay and Lieutenant Commander LaForge sat around the conference table. With four senior staff members missing, including the captain, the attendance in the observation lounge was more like that of the weekly departmental meetings.

"Have we been able to determine the level of Vian presence on the planet?" Data moved on to the next subject. The simple process of deduction, and the sensor readings they'd obtained during the kidnapping, had led them to suspect the Minarans old benefactors.

The engineer shook his head. "Hard to tell. We haven't detected any Vian technology. But the records show that the Vians lived underground. A science team lived on one of the Minaran worlds for months and didn't even know there were any Vians there until they made themselves known."

"The Minarans do maintain some advanced technology," Zakarov interjected. "But they seem to keep it down to a minimum, and there's no evidence of space travel. At least on the surface."

"Then it is your opinion that the Vians have not settled Hilosk along with the Minarans?"

"Actually, sir." Zakarov folded his big, meaty hands in front of him on the dark, shiny top of the conference table. "I think they are here. There are several places, buildings in isolated areas that aren't occupied, but don't appear to be abandoned either. Our scanners don't show any advanced technology or power sources, but their construction is completely different from anything in the Minaran communities and definitely conforms to what we'd expect the Vians to built. The Minarans haven't been on this planet long enough to have a significant number of abandoned structures."

Data assimilated this. "It is reasonable to assume that the captain and the others are being held below ground." The others at the conference agreed.

"Sir," Worf's deep voice caught his attention. "We must mount a rescue of our personnel."

"I concur," Data agreed, his pale, gold-tinted android features perfectly calm. "But we cannot act until we have more information." He addressed the others at the table. "We will concentrate our efforts on these structures and work on a counter defense to the Vians technology. We will reconvene in two hours."

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

"Deanna?"

Pain pierced Troi's temples, like she'd been eating cold ice cream too quickly, except a thousand times worse. She felt sick, but the pain was receding and she kept her head very still in case any movement might revive it. Her cheek rested against fabric.

"Deanna?" Commander Riker said again. His hand brushed her hair back away from her face and caressed her cheek. His arm supported her back so that her right shoulder pressed up next to him. He cradled her in his lap.

"Mmmmmmm," she moaned, still trying not to move too much. Her groan did not rekindle the fading agony and she opened her eyes. At first she saw only a blur above her, but she blinked and brought Will Riker's face into focus. Doctor Crusher knelt next to them, her medical scanner hummed close to the counselor's head.

"There's no physical damage, but her whole system's had quite a jolt." She lowered the scanner. "Deanna, can you hear me?"

She nodded, closing her eyes. When the Minarans had tried to help, tugging on the Vians, trying to slide between them and the captain, one of the Vian had done something to the small control box he'd carried. She'd felt an overwhelming sense of psychic pressure on her skull, as if she were at the bottom of a pit with thousands of people piled on top of her. Will Riker must have caught her as she fell, though she didn't remember falling. But suddenly she'd become aware of _him_, and particularly his total ignorance of the mental attack around them and her thoughts had rushed to him like a person sheltering under a rock cliff in a storm. It hadn't entirely protected her, but it had helped a great deal.

_Imzadi!_, she'd thought to him, her old lover's name for him a plea for help, a feeble voice lost in a psychic storm that he didn't hear. The painful attack had been purely aimed at her empathic senses, meant for her and the Minarans.

Troi opened her eyes and tried to sit up.

"The Minarans. Where are they?" Riker helped her to sit, then stand. She stood unsteadily at first, but the nausea and dizziness quickly passed.

The Minarans lay where they had fallen, next to the table the captain lay on. Picard hadn't moved. A little trickle of red ran down his head to a small stain on the surface of the table under it. The Vians had vanished.

"Are you alright?" Riker asked, his hand still at her waist. She was very glad that he was near. She explained the empathic nature of the attack on her and the Minarans to her shipmates.

"It must have been much worse for them," she said, looking at the fallen Minarans. "They've never experienced anything like that. I don't think that any of them have been so deliberately attacked that way. We've got to help them."

Riker nodded. "We've got to get out of this first." Riker looked about their pen again, but it was bare and empty. The whole place they were in reminded him of the holodeck. It was like a stage, so neutral that it didn't seem that unfamiliar. It cried out to be filled in, for things to be put into it. But Riker could have done without their force field prison.

Doctor Crusher took her medical tricorder out of the pocket of her lab coat again and pointed it at the force field between then and the captain. Even though it was a medical tricorder, it was still a tricorder and it did have some minimal general scanning functions. She followed the invisible face of the force field to one of its four glowing pillars to her right. Riker went to the left with his tricorder.

"This force field doesn't seem to be coming from anywhere. There's no source for the power," Crusher complained.

"According to the records, the Vians were able to tap into their power source from any location. But their force fields were able to draw energy directly from their victims. The first away team that encountered them was able to get through them when they didn't fight against them. The Vian's force fields collapsed without the energy it drew from them," Riker quoted the Starfleet logs. He scanned the upper perimeter of their prison. "This doesn't look like the same thing." Riker looked down at his tricorder again. "But this doesn't look like enough energy to keep a field like this going." He thought for a moment, put his tricorder back into its pouch and then walked over to the forward face. He touched it. His fingertips tingled, smarting like a shock from a metal surface on a cold, dry day.

Riker took several deep breaths, closed his eyes and cleared his mind. Puzzled, Crusher and Troi observed. He lifted his arm, his wrist limp, and slowly pushed it forward. The backs of his fingers tingled. He continued. The tingling, unpleasant but bearable, moved over his hand and then formed a ring around his wrist, and then his arm.

Crusher and Troi silently watched, not wanting to break Riker's concentration. His arm now protruded outside the force field past his elbow. He almost tensed up when the tingling hit his armpit, but he slid past it. It tickled his face in a vertical line, moving across it. The glowing beam under him was flush with the floor, so he was able to slide his feet forward without having to step over it. Crusher monitored his progress with her tricorder.

Riker had just cleared his left elbow when he jerked his arm through the rest of the way. The force field snapped loudly at the sudden movement and he shook his hand, stung by the field's electric bite. Crusher and Troi almost cheered when he came through it. The commander exhaled and gave silent thanks to his weekly Tai Chi sessions.

Riker swiftly turned and went to the captain.

"Captain!" He bent over Picard and checked the pulse in his neck. It was strong and steady, his skin was warm and dry. Then he looked to the small cut on Picard's head, but it was a shallow wound and was no longer bleeding. Riker shook his shoulders, but he didn't respond. The commander cupped Picard's face in his hands.

"Captain!"

"Is he all right?" Doctor Crusher asked, still penned in by the force field.

"His pulse and breathing are fine." Riker scrutinized the slight tenseness in Picard's features, the veins at his temples. "It looks like a heavy phaser stun." He left Picard to return to them.

"You're going to have to get through." The invisible barrier hummed between them. "You can do it if you clear your mind. Relax and don't think of anything; don't give it anything feed on. If you resist it, it'll use it against you."

"That's easy for you to say," Crusher answered doubtfully, pocketing her tricorder.

Riker left them to go to the now stirring Minarans. The taller female sat up as soon as he touched her. Her hands flew to her cheeks and then slid down over the sparkling green fabric of her jumpsuit at her neck. Her hands returned to her face again, and then she reached for Riker's face, her hands framing it.

"It's all right," he reassured the Minaran. She didn't appear to be afraid, but Riker read shock and revulsion on her features.

Her companions' reactions were not so calm. The crawled together, the smaller female's pink and orange sparkling caftan enfolding the male's middle. He pressed his face to her short, brown hair. His eyes squeezed shut, he clutched his companion as tightly as she did him.

Over at the force field Doctor Crusher was having trouble getting through. She'd tried to get through twice already and had gotten nasty shocks for her trouble. Counselor Troi spoke softly to her, coaching her for another attempt.

The taller female, on her hands and knees, slid over to the other two Minarans. She laid her hands on their shoulders. Slowly they turned to her, the horror of the attack showing on their faces. They reached out to her and she took them. Her slender arms curled around their shoulders, and she pressed her face to the tops of each of their heads. Riker wondered if they'd ever experienced any kind of violence before in their lives at all. From his intimate coupling with the taller female, he had the very strong impression that they never had.

Riker got up and went back to the force field. Doctor Crusher had almost made it through. He reached out and yanked her the rest of the way. She cried out in surprise. She'd been so totally absorbed in pulling her left wrist through, she hadn't seen him coming.

"Thanks," she told him, not very gratefully. She shook her wrist, trying to lessen the sting before going straight to the captain.

Her trained empathic mind clear, relaxed, Troi faced the force field. She smoothly slid forward, her head perfectly level. She kept going even after a faint, flickering outline appeared on her chest and then around the end of her nose. She closed her eyes. A growing, spreading contour outline of the force field appeared on the rest of her body. Her hairline emerged, then the line of energy moved back on her head, the outline of her blue-green and black uniform framed in glowing yellow. The rest of her came through easily as if she were weightlessly rising from a pool.

Unfortunately she misjudged when she had completed her crossing. She moved too quickly at the end and the force field snapped back, effectively pinching her on the butt. Riker grinned. She ignored him. He gave a cursory glance at where she rubbed the affected area before they went over to the captain.

Crusher held her scanner over Picard while she consulted the readings on her tricorder. She shook her head. "You're right," she told Riker. "It's some kind of stun." Unable to help him, she knelt to examine the Minarans. The male and the shorter female stared back at her warily, but the taller female, understanding Crusher's intent, sat passively and encouraged her comrades to do the same while the doctor scanned them.

"No physical damage," she reported. "But plenty of stress." She reached out to the taller female and touched her on the shoulder. "It's going to be all right. We're going to get out of this."

The taller female responded by taking Beverly Crusher's hand and rising, bidding the doctor to stand as well. She encouraged the other Minarans to stand. The male stood and straightened his shoulders and ineffectively tried to straighten his hopelessly wrinkled, silky black tunic, but it was difficult with the smaller female's arms still wrapped around his middle. The taller female turned her green eyes to Riker and tilted her head. What would they do now?

Riker looked about at the collection of Vian artifacts around them, the glowing outline box of their former prison, the table the captain lay on; curving, gray half-arches, a trapezoidal, padded bench, something that might have been a view screen, gray and inactive, and squarish pillars. Beyond this the horizonless black void surrounded them, an empty field for the players in a half-furnished setting.

"Can you do anything to revive the captain?" he asked the doctor. Crusher frowned. In Sickbay she could have administered a single hypospray to clear the temporary paralysis, but the Vians had been thoughtless enough to kidnap her without a medikit. She scanned the captain again. His vital signs remained steady, but locked in a state of virtual catalepsy. The tricorder even indicated that he was conscious, on a low level, but unable to respond.

High on his forehead, the superficial cut that the Vians had made had stopped bleeding. Like most head wounds it had bled freely and profusely even though it was only a shallow horizontal line about a centimeter long. The commander stared down at it with Doctor Crusher. There didn't seem to have been any purpose to their making it; it didn't look like the Vians had collected any sample of blood, or even scanned it. Unless, Riker decided, it had been done for the benefit of their prisoners, a touch of blood to shock the audience. One of the few things they knew about the Vians was that they were perfectly willing to coldly experiment on other sentients for their own purposes. There seemed to be far too many creatures like them in the galaxy for the Riker's tastes.

"Perhaps the Minarans can help," Deanna Troi suggested. Indeed the three were looking down at the captain with concern. The taller female seemed to have understood Troi's meaning. Riker moved aside to allow her to stand over Picard's head. At the end of the table he lay on, her graceful hands poised over him, her green eyes looked at each of the _Enterprise_ crew members as if waiting for their permission, her previous offense against Picard making her timid. They silently consented. She looked down at Picard; her hands descended to his forehead.

**

* * *

o o o End Part 11**


	12. Chapter 12

**LESSONS LEARNED**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

o o o Part 12**

"We think we have a way of using the Vian's technology against them. Reg here," Geordi LaForge indicated the man with thinning, light brown hair next to him at the conference table, "did a lot of studies on the Vian ship we captured, and he's studied all the records we have on the Vians."

After a moment of hesitation, Lieutenant Barclay nervously described his work. "W-we don't actually understand the Vian power systems. They seem to- to use a broadcast signal that allows them to tap into their power sources anywhere they want. But." Barclay held up a finger as he warmed to the subject, his voice losing its nervous hesitation as he went. "We can imitate their control systems. They aren't too dissimilar from our own, the major difference being that theirs are primarily controlled by thought patterns rather than voice."

"Are you able to recreate one of their control units?" Data asked, intrigued.

"Yes. The away team that the Vians captured a hundred years ago was able to modify a captured control unit with just a tricorder. Well," he qualified, "it was a Vulcan who know his own brain pattern from memory. But there's no reason that we can't, based on what we know from the ship we examined. Their control systems haven't changed that much since them. In fact," Barclay admitted, "I've already built a prototype. But I haven't matched it to any specific brain pattern yet," he finished as if he were turning in his work late.

"Excellent," Data replied with a pleased tone in his voice. "You will be able to equip an away team with such devices?"

"W-we can..." Barclay began uncertainly. LaForge continued.

"But we can only set the control unit to one person at a time. And whoever uses it has got to be able to consciously control their brain waves. Since I've had a lot of experience with bio-feedback techniques," LaForge indicated the VISOR covering his eyes, "we were going to set it for my pattern."

Data agreed.

"Once we're able to tap into the Vian energy source, we should be able to locate our people with just a thought." Geordi gestured as if once they'd reached that point, rescue would be imminent. "And hopefully get them out of there."

"Hmm." Data seem satisfied with this projection. He turned to the science officer.

"Commander Zakarov. Do you think it is possible for us to use the Vian power sources in our favor as well?"

"Yes, sir. The problem is," Science Officer Zakarov stated. "We haven't been able to locate any Vian energy sources or broadcasts. I've got all the science departments covering the sensors looking for any traces. So far we haven't found a thing."

"You think it likely then that an away team might be able to detect and use them?"

"It's entirely likely. The Vians were right under the noses of a Starfleet research team for months and they never even suspected they were there. From that, I'd have to say that their energy source broadcasts must be very tightly confined. And at the moment the abandoned structures we've spotted are the best place to start looking."

"This is a reasonable assumption." Data added up all the variables and instantly calculated the possibilities. LaForge and Zakarov had proposed at the beginning of the meeting that away teams watch each of the abandoned buildings, with a coordinating team composed of them plus Mr. Worf. Now having assembled the facts, Data agreed with their assessment. Ordinarily, he himself have gone on the away mission, but this, of course, was out of the question. Being third in command, with Picard and Riker missing, it was questionable enough that he was sending the next two ranking command officers, besides himself, after them. He could not leave his post. Data concluded that based on his knowledge and personal experience the chances of success were simply much higher with LaForge and Worf on the lead team.

The android nodded. "Proceed."

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

"Doctor, I'm fine," Picard brushed away Doctor Crusher's hovering scanner as he would an insect. He sat on the padded bench amidst the loose pieces of the Vian's laboratory. To his left, a half-arch stretched out to nowhere above them. To the right, Commander Riker investigated a featureless, gray and squarish pillar. The Minarans and Counselor Troi stood close by.

"You're not fine," Crusher told him. She sat next to him on the bench, her tricorder pointed in his direction. "It's astonishing how the Minaran healed the wound. I can't even tell there was a cut." He flinched away from her fingers. Her intense interest in his scalp was beginning to annoy him. He didn't care how medically intriguing it might be. The taller female had restored his mobility, but none of his energy. He felt weary and cross.

Riker returned from his inspection of the area.

"Have you found anything Number One?" He hoped that some discussion would distract the doctor.

"No control systems, no instrumentation. But the Vian technology is thought activated. I could have walked right past a way out of this place without even knowing it." He waved his arm behind him at the featureless black void all around them. "From what I remember of the old _Enterprise_ logs this is the same kind of setup the Vians used on them, too."

"A Vian laboratory?" Picard suggested.

"And we're the test animals," Riker finished.

"Are you sure, we're being tested?" Troi broke in. "In the original encounter, it was the Minaran's resolve that the Vians were testing."

"Whatever their purposes, we must assume that to the Vians, we are expendable, as well as the Minarans." Picard reminded her of the psychic attack. "Counselor, can you tell us exactly what happened? It might help us to understand what the Vian's motives are."

Troi lowered her eyes and sat down next to him. The Minarans watched her, their eyes following her words, if not their exact meaning. "It's difficult to put into words. It felt as if I was being mentally pressured. As if I couldn't control the thoughts and emotions going into my mind. As if I were in a crowd where everyone was thinking _at_ me."

"Like sensory overload?" She returned Picard's intense gaze, remembering his empathic crisis in the turbolift a few days ago. She knew he was thinking about it, and he knew that she knew as well.

"When Will caught me," she spoke slowly, piecing together the events. "It was as if I were able to hide behind him, away from it."

"I heard you," Riker admitted quietly.

"You did?" she asked surprised, looking up at him.

He nodded.

She shook her head. "I could barely find myself in all that. You were more real to me than my own thoughts." A smile tugged at his lips. It hadn't occurred to him that she might not know that he'd heard her.

"Then he was able to shield her from it?" Crusher asked. She sat very close to the captain, her body not quite brushing up against his.

"Hmmm." Picard shifted, the gray, plastic-like covering of the bench rubbing against his pants. The conference had turned uncomfortably solemn and personal when they should have been planning for how they would deal with the Vians. "That could be useful if it happens again. In the meantime, we've got to find a way of using what we have to our advantage before the Vians return. In their previous encounter, the old _Enterprise_ team was able to find an exit. Is there any evidence of one here Number One?"

Riker shook his head and tapped the tricorder in its pouch at his waist. "The tricorder doesn't read anything beyond a hundred meter radius. But even if it showed us a way out we couldn't be sure it wasn't a trick of the Vians."

"They lured the people they captured before with a mirage escape route," Picard finished, recalling the old records. "This whole 'laboratory' implies that we're here to be tested. The question is, what do they want to know?"

"But are we being tested?" Troi indicated herself. "Or are they testing the Minarans?"

"Perhaps, both," Doctor Crusher suggested.

Their discussion didn't go far. They had almost nothing to work with and no direction to go in the featureless abyss surrounding them on all sides. The best that their tricorders could tell them was that they were probably underground and that the local gravity was what Riker remembered to be standard for Hilosk. Doctor Crusher's tricorder, with it's short range medical scanners, was almost useless for probing the emptiness around them. Neither tricorder could penetrate beyond the tons of rock and soil above the cavern they were in. Around them a diffuse energy field blocked the sensors not stopped by the invisible ceiling.

Commander Riker and Counselor Troi took the commander's tricorder to further examine the Vian laboratory. The male Minaran followed, curious and trying to look helpful. Picard stayed sitting on the bench, Doctor Crusher next to him. She recommended rest, but the idea lying down and going to sleep in this place was out of the question to him.

"Interesting how Will was able shield Deanna." She nodded toward the Minarans. "Do you think we can do the same for them?" Beverly Crusher asked after the captain had refused to lie down. She couldn't blame him. The taller female sat down on the other side of Picard. Her companion hovered nearby, tugging at the glittery pink and orange edges of her caftan.

"I suppose."

_It worked for me_, he thought privately to himself as he recalled Beverly Crusher sitting over his bed in his quarters. His lower back was hurting and his throat was dry and sore, both sure signs that he was tired. He felt painfully aware of Doctor Crusher's nearness next to him. He heard a low humming.

Doctor Crusher had her medical tricorder pointed at him again.

"Beverly," he said a bit exasperated. "I'm fine, really."

She folded up her tricorder. "If we were on the _Enterprise_, I would have you in sickbay right now."

"If we were on the _Enterprise_ we wouldn't be dealing with this Vian experiment in the first place," he snapped back. She glared back at him and he continued in a softer voice, "I appreciate your concern for me, Doctor, but until we get out of this, or are able to communicate with the Vians, anything else must take second priority." She nodded. His hands rested on his legs and she laid her hand over one of his. He was reminded of Kesprit, escaping from the authorities there, their thoughts tied together by the devices implanted by their captors.

But they weren't alone this time. He carefully and deliberately laid her hand aside.

"Beverly, this isn't the time for any personal sentiment. We have to concentrate on getting out of here."

"What?" she asked. "What are you talking about?"

"Beverly," he answered in a hushed and hurried voice, his patience running thin. "I don't think I need to explain that this is not the proper place or time for any personal relationship that we might share."

Her eyes widened, her mouth opened in surprise and then a nasty smile curled her lips.

"I don't think I believe what I'm hearing," she answered in an incredulous whisper.

"Doctor, we are in a dangerous situation. We've been kidnapped off the _Enterprise_ by the Vians. We do not know what they want, but we do know that they would have little regard for out welfare. We cannot afford the distraction of any personal feelings between us, now."

"_I'm_ not the one who brought this up."

"Then you're telling me that your fawning over me is just professional concern, Doctor?" he demanded furiously.

"Yes, Captain." Her dangerous smile disappeared amidst her anger. "I don't think I'm out of line by being concerned when a fellow officer is showing symptoms of extreme fatigue. And in case you haven't noticed, your body temperature and you blood pressure are down, your neck and your back hurt, your coordination and your reflexes are impaired, you have a slight inflammation in your throat and your vocal cords. And you're slouching.

"I don't have any trouble keeping my professional and my personal concerns separate. And if you have this much trouble telling the difference between the two then I can now see why you're so afraid personal relationships in the first place."

Picard's back straightened with silent anger. She was accusing him of dragging their relationship into this situation when he was trying to steer away from it. He was furious and hurt that she could be so petty. He kept his mouth tightly closed. He knew that she would add more of her own biting commentary to anything at all that he might say, dragging them further into the emotional mess.

This was the worst possible scenario; he'd allowed his personal life to overshadow him in the midst of a crisis, he thought, as angry at himself as he was at her.

He looked over to where Riker, Troi and the male Minaran were looking over some of the Vian artifacts, but they didn't seem to have noticed the argument. Sounds didn't travel well in this place. There was no echoes at all and even the sounds of their boots on the hard, black floor were muted. The tall Minaran female still sat silently next to him, watching them with a surprised look on her face. He'd forgotten she was even there.

"Beverly, I'm simply saying that we cannot afford to be distracted from our present situation," he explained, looking at her carefully, sincerely he hoped. "I am responsible for getting us out of this, hopefully by finding a way to communicate with the Vians. And I couldn't bear it if you were injured because I allowed myself to be drawn into this distraction."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. What had gotten into him? Alone, without food or water, running for their lives on Kesprit, he hadn't said, he hadn't even thought anything like this the last time they'd been caught in a hostile situation. They had shared their most intimate thoughts freely and then _she_ had pushed _him_ toward safety as the authorities had closed in on them.

"You've almost died on my operating table more than once and you're telling me that you're worried about being responsible for _my_ safety?"

He stared back at her as he might a junior ensign who'd publically disobeyed his commands. She wanted to slap him. She glanced around her and exhaled carefully. This wasn't the right place. He was right about that at least. _Why the hell did he bring this up in the first place? Now of all times?_ She looked away and capped her temper. At the far end of the Vian laboratory, Troi and Riker were turned away from them. Their black pants blending into the background making them look like two torsos floating above the void.

Troi knew. She had to know. Crusher couldn't imagine how the Betazoid could _not_ sense that she was _this_ angry.

_That's it_, she realized. _He's embarrassed. There wasn't anybody to see us on Kesprit. Now he can't bear the idea of having the captain showing some compassion in front of his first officer._ She had never realized before then how self-righteous he was about command. At once it seemed that all her doubts about having a relationship with him had born fruit, or rather thorns.

She didn't say anything more, ending their argument. _He's tired. He's not thinking clearly._ That was the most charitable thing she could think about him at the moment. _But he's not getting away with this later._

Picard glowered toward where Commander Riker and Counselor Troi stood. The two other officers conspicuously had their backs to them, making it blatantly obvious to the captain that Troi at least, and probably Will Riker as well knew that they'd been arguing. He looked away from them and scanned the area again to remind himself of the real danger they were in. But this place where they were being held didn't look dangerous. It looked like the holodeck. The odds and ends of the Vian laboratory didn't look all that different from anything on the _Enterprise_, except for being a bit more angular.

Time to wait. Dangerous, he realized, time enough to let his fatigue get the better of him. Doctor Crusher next to him remained silent, no longer voicing her acidic opinions, but he knew she was thinking them, which satisfied him. He was determined to use this dead time effectively.

The Vians were confident enough to leave them alone. But it was overconfidence. From the records, the Vians were far too sure of their own superiority. The old _Enterprise_ away team had used every advantage that the Vians had allowed them to escape, and Picard decided, they would do the same.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

She sat next to the Smooth-Headed One as he spoke to the Red-Haired One. Her Yearning-Most Follower was right; their feelings were contained in their sounds. She'd become accustomed to them and it seemed that she could almost grasp their meaning. These two she sat next to were familiar to each other. Not as close as she was to her Followers, but they shared themselves in a way that she'd thought was totally alien to these people.

She did not understand it. Their thoughts and emotions crashed into each other, like blind ones who would not pause to feel where the other was before advancing forward.

Next to her the harsh acrimony between the Smooth-Headed One and the Red-Haired One faded. They'd stopped making sounds at each other, an unspoken and unresolved attempt to make peace between them. She could feel their thoughts searching for other things to bury their bile with. Madness. They used their sounds to carry their feelings; they used their lack of sounds to hide them.

She touched the Smooth-Headed One, very lightly on the back of his shoulder. He didn't notice. There was very little energy left within him; the Old Ones seemed to have used it all up. Within her, she drifted toward his inner self, her own energies becoming part of his, erasing the discord of the Old Ones'. The Smooth-Headed One nodded, his chin falling forward as he relaxed into the rest that would replenish him.

He started, his head jerking up and she whipped her hand from him. He glared toward her, his posture conveyed his disdain. She folded her hands in her lap. She pushed away the faint hurt she felt from his rejection. It was his way. She need not understand it to accept it. Her green eyes stared back at him evenly. She need not like it to accept it either.

The Red-Haired One noticed her and now they were both turned toward her. She sat back, using crude body language to express her scorn for their behavior. The Smooth-Headed One was even annoyed with her that she was sitting next to them, as if she'd done something wrong (again) by offering them help. She was annoyed right back at him.

She stayed where she was, folded her arms across her chest and turned her back on them both.

He uttered some low noises. He knew he'd offended her and regretted it. She felt it radiating from him. Then why did he have to offend in the first place? His emotions were so disjointed from his thoughts, as if they were two separate entities. No wonder they'd crossed so badly.

Something stabbed her in the temple. She froze and the dark world around her and all the things in it turned red. It was happening again, the terrible thing the Old Ones had done to them. Her mind was being crushed under the mass of thoughts and feelings so tightly packed together she couldn't make out any single one. They surrounded her as if they were squeezing the life out of her physical body.

Then something blocked out the redness, like a shade casting a shadow over an unbearable sun. The Smooth-Headed One held her. He was her shade. Unaware of the terror pressing in on her, his mind was still and senseless to the pain as a stone. She felt him; he sought to protect her.

She accepted, turning toward him and wrapping herself tightly around his middle, pressing her head to his chest. Sheltering next to him, she shuddered and waited for the terror to pass.

**

* * *

o o o End Part 12**


	13. Chapter 13

**LESSONS LEARNED**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

o o o Part 13**

The air was damp, cool and fresh with the scent of new plants; dew covered everything in the planetary early morning. Worf cautiously approached the structure in the gloom, the white light he held over his head illuminated an angular, irregular open doorway. Behind him, Geordi LaForge and Danek Zakarov followed. The science officer's tricorder was already out and ready, it's tiny lights blinking in the darkness behind the Klingon.

Their circle of light moved into the gray structure. It consisted of a single large room with five quadrangular openings. There was no symmetry to it at all. The floor was perfectly flat, but the ceiling slanted and peaked unevenly. It was all angles with no rounded corners or curves.

Lieutenant Commander LaForge's artificially enhanced vision saw beyond the stone-like appearance of the superhard synthetic the building was made of. It was spotless. Outside, deep green, young trees and indigo ivy encroached upon the walls. But nothing grew inside. Even crumpled leaves and brown bits of plants and things that might be blown in by the wind had stayed away. This one was just like the last three they'd seen.

LaForge turned on his own light and held it up to his shoulder, adding the visible range of light to what he could already see. Outside, the cloudless sky barely showed the first glow of morning. Zakarov paced the interior, his tricorder hummed, probing for unseen energy.

He completed his circuit, ending up next to the security chief. His shoulders were as broad and he was nearly as tall as Worf. He shook his head.

"No energy broadcasts." Another failure. LaForge lowered his light and pulled out his own tricorder. He crouched and Zakarov did as well. Worf towered over both of them while they scanned the floor.

"Same energy pattern residuals," Zakarov offering hopefully.

"Yeah, somebody's keeping house here," LaForge admitted. "But the Vians are sure keeping their heads low." He fingered the squarish control box in the removable pocket pouch attached to the waist of his uniform. He and Lieutenants Barclay and Hoff and Ensign Leflar had worked long hours building it. Now they just needed a chance to try it out.

LaForge sighed and tapped his communicator to report their negative results again to the ship. They would move on to the next structure.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

"Is she all right?" Picard asked.

"No," Crusher answered, not taking her eyes from her scanner. Commander Riker knelt on the floor, Counselor Troi cradled in his arms. Her face was deathly pale, her arms limp. Amidst the tangle of her dark brown hair a tiny stream of red appeared out of her left ear.

They crouched on the floor near the half-arch where Troi had been standing when the attack had come. The two female Minarans were apparently fine, each shielded by the captain and the doctor. But the male Minaran and Troi were not. Even though Riker had been with them both during it they'd taken the full force of the assault, the commander's presence strangely ineffective this time.

Crusher's tricorder registered shocked brain cells and straining blood vessels. The Betazoid was not in any imminent danger of dying, but without medical attention the damage caused by the trauma would become permanent.

Next to her the smaller Minaran female huddled close. Doctor Crusher had shielded her during the attack and since its passing she had attached herself to the doctor. She stared wide-eyed at Troi as Picard and Crusher discussed her condition. Behind them, the taller Minaran female bent over the male, their foreheads touching, her hands resting on his cheeks. The smaller, younger female swallowed hard and extended a tentative finger.

She drew back as if the counselor's forehead were hot. And then, slowly, clutching the doctor's arm, she touched Troi again. Her eyes squeezed shut, her body went rigid, her grip on Crusher's arm tightened.

Picard and Riker watched; the doctor looked up and down from her tricorder to the Minaran and Troi and back. After a minute it seemed as if color returned to Troi's cheeks even as it drained from the Minaran's, as if some indefinable glow moved from one to the other, pouring life into an injured vessel. And then her head swung back, her hand fell away, her body sagging, almost weeping. She buried her face in Crusher's shoulder.

A new pair of hands touched Troi. The taller female had risen, the male behind her, and knelt beside Riker. She leaned close so her forehead touched the betazoid's, her head covering Troi's. Then she suddenly sat up and back, her body arching, her hands still at Troi's temples.

The counselor stirred. Her eyes opened, unfocused at first, then increasingly aware of her surroundings. The Minaran's hands fell away and she let her head fall forward, shadowing Troi.

"Thank you," Doctor Crusher said gratefully, with a smile of growing wonder. "Thank you," she said to the smaller female. She put her arm around her shoulders and hugged her. The smaller female smiled shyly, her eyes bright.

"Deanna?" Riker touched Troi's cheek. She stirred and sat up with Riker's help.

"Deanna?" Riker asked after it looked as if she'd gotten her bearings. "Are you okay?"

"I don't know." She shook her head slowly, her hand at her forehead.

"What happened?" Picard asked, his hand touching her shoulder as if to steady her.

"I'm not sure. It was worse this time. But Will couldn't shield me. And," she turned to the male Minaran, who had wearily crouched next to them. "I could feel you nearby, in pain, too." He earnestly stared back at her. "I could barely sense you." She turned Riker. "There was this horrible sense of our minds being crushed." Her voice mirrored the pain she'd felt, her hand covered Riker's which clasped her about the middle.

"Were you able to sense the Vians at all?" Picard asked.

Troi shook her head, her long, dark, curly hair falling down around her shoulders. "No." She answered. "I didn't feel any single presence. Again, it was like many people closing in. But it was so intense, so overwhelming, I couldn't discern any individuals." She got to her feet, Riker helping her up. Doctor Crusher made her walk across the black floor over to the low bench to sit down. Riker, Picard and the Minarans, the shorter female still hovering close to the doctor, followed.

Picard looked down at Crusher and Troi with a serious and thoughtful expression.

"Interesting dilemma," Picard noted. The two women and the Minarans looked at him. "Four empaths, and only three people to protect them."

"And only one empath can be shielded by each person," Riker finished. "You think that's what the Vian's are up to?"

Picard nodded.

"Up to what?" Crusher asked.

"In the previous encounter with the Vians, they 'tested' their subjects to determine if the Minarans were worthy of being saved from the nova that would destroy their planet," Picard explained.

"This is a test?" Crusher returned scornfully. She had only skimmed the records of the earlier _Enterprise_'s contact with the Vians and had concentrated on the physiological data on the Vians and the Minarans. "Why would they need to test the Minarans now?"

"Perhaps, the Minarans aren't the ones being tested."

"They're testing us?" the doctor asked. "Why?"

"We know where the Minarans are," Picard speculated. "It is almost guaranteed that we will be back at some time to establish contact with them. And the Vians, having established themselves as their guardians would want to determine if we're good enough for them."

"In the Vian's original test, they wanted to measure their subject's capacity for self-sacrifice," Riker noted.

The captain nodded. "It would seem that they still use that measure in their analyses."

"And the test is, which empath do we sacrifice." Troi said. She sighed; her back straightened. "It would have to be me."

"It doesn't have to be anybody," Crusher objected loudly. The smaller female Minaran next to her started back, startled by the doctor's tone. The taller female reached down and laid her hand on her shoulder. Then she took her arm and gently urged her to stand. The two taller Minarans led their shier companion away, her pink and orange caftan fluttering in her wake. They formed a triad a few meters away, holding some kind of silent conference.

"Captain," Troi looked away from the Minarans and back to Picard. "If the Vians attack again, you have to protect them."

"Deanna-" Crusher interrupted.

"If the Minarans are injured, I can't do anything to help them. But they helped me, and could help me if it happens again."

"I don't think they can bring you back to life," the doctor told her.

Troi ignored the comment and addressed Picard. "The Vians would be testing our capacity for self-sacrifice," she stated. "Would we let one of our own die to save the Minarans?"

Picard shook his head slowly. "No. We will not submit to the Vians' 'tests'. We are not going to wait here," he looked about at the empty black void. "We're going to try and find a way out."

"And what if the Vians attack now?" Troi persisted, standing up. Picard stonily stared down at her. She was questioning his decision. She was right to do so.

"Then we'll have to hope that the Minarans can repair the damage," he answered solemnly. Doctor Crusher started to speak, but his expression stopped her. Riker's face hardened. There weren't any other options. At least not at the moment.

Picard nodded toward the Minarans, who were looking at them. "We'll have to all go together." The Minarans came, as if Picard had called them. They quietly listened to his explanation and it seemed that they understood, but it also appeared that they had come to their own decision.

"I think they want to speak to the Vians. To convince them not to use us for their experiments," Troi offered.

"I'd like to talk to the Vians myself," Picard agreed. "But I'd prefer a less vulnerable setting. Commander Riker, get the tricorder." Riker nodded and went to where he'd dropped his tricorder during the last attack on the empaths. The Minarans immediately became concerned. After getting a look of approval from her companions, the smaller female went after Riker.

The taller female drew Picard and Crusher to sit on the low bench with her between them. Troi stood, the tall male behind her.

"You have to understand. I know you think you can convince the Vians to-" The Minaran put her hand on Picard's chest cutting off his explanation. A warm, pleasant sensation spread out from where she touched him. He blinked in surprise; he swayed. Behind her, Doctor Crusher saw his reaction and she reached around the Minaran's shoulder, grabbing her arm to pull her away from him. Undeterred the Minaran continued to stare at him with determined green eyes. Crusher's hands fell away and, just as affected as he was, she leaned heavily on the Minaran's shoulder. Behind them, the male lifted an unconscious Troi to lie on the bench.

Instantly Picard knew what they were doing. Annoyed that he hadn't thought of it before, he realized that the Minarans must know the events of the first meeting of Minaran and Vian. Except instead of cool, accurate Starfleet records, their knowledge would come from the one individual who'd first been tested by the Vians. Either by printed or taped account, or perhaps just legend, these three Minarans knew the story of the tests that the Vians had used against their captives and that self-sacrifice was what the Vians were most likely looking for.

The Minaran lifted her hand to his chin. His body meekly relaxed against his will, unable to keep his eyes open, he slumped forward, his head pressing between her breasts and sliding downward. The Minarans could perfectly well see the dilemma of having four empaths and only three people to protect them. They were going to offer themselves up to the Vians, rather than see them have to make a choice about who would die. The same thing had happened between the members of the old _Enterprise_ away team when the Vians had come demanding a life for their tests. The medical officer had incapacitated the other two members of the team and submitted himself to the Vian tortures so that the others might be spared. The Minarans were surely aware of that part of the story as well. His revelation slipped and faded as Picard felt soft hands under his head and shoulders. Without thinking he let himself be lowered, sinking into a warm, comfortable sleep.

Still stunned, Doctor Crusher rose, stumbling away before falling to her hands and knees. Her brief physical contact with the taller female had left her disoriented and weak, but still able to think. The Minarans had made their own decisions about who would be left out when the Vians attacked again and now they were acting on it.

Crusher felt hands grasping her under the arms, lifting her. She tried shaking them off, but the urge to sleep only increased. The male supported her, turning her back toward the bench where she could see the taller female laying Picard down. The Minaran walked her back to them and unable to resist, she went. They gently laid her down between Picard and Troi.

On the other side of the Vian laboratory, Riker picked up the dropped tricorder and put it in his pouch. He stood, turned back and saw the male Minaran picking up a limp Troi. Alarmed, he took a step toward them. The smaller Minaran rushed at him, her sparkling caftan fluttering urgently. Something had gone wrong. Another attack? But then the Minarans wouldn't still be standing. He sidestepped to avoid colliding with the smaller female, but she surprised him by deliberately ramming into him; her arms wrapped around his waist.

Riker wobbled and went to his knees, the Minaran cushioning his fall. He was surprised. The Minaran didn't look big enough to knock him down. She wrapped her arms around his head and hugged it to her stomach and he realized that something else was going on. He groaned and relaxed, his muscles suddenly flaccid. His arms flailed uselessly. With her arms still wrapped about his head, she brought him down like a tranquilized bull. The last thing he felt was the warmth of her body still pressed next to his cheek.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

She looked up at her Dearest-Most Follower. She sat proudly next to the Hair-Faced One's body like a predator over its catch, though the Hair-Faced One had come to no harm. Her Yearning-Most Follower looked at them and then back down at the three sleeping Ones. The Hair-Faced One lay many paces away and he was the biggest and heaviest.

They went to her Dearest-Most Follower. Her Yearning-Most Follower took the feet while they took his arms. Still keeping his mind and body still, they carried him. His bottom just scraped the floor. They heaved him up with the others. The motion caused him to stir, but she quickly quieted him again and he lay still with the others, the Darkest-Most-Eyes One securely in the middle. The closeness of the Others would protect her especially.

They stood back, apart from them. Their gesture could not be clearer to the Old Ones.

A sound, a humming, a buzzing rose from the air around them. A flash. Two Old Ones appeared. They faced them, waiting for the Old Ones' judgement. When the Old Ones had appeared to the First-to-Know-the-Old-Ones they had tested her worthiness, demanding she show her capacity to give to the Others. The First-to-Know-the-Old-Ones herself had declared in the old stories that she had faltered at the end, but the Others had been true to her and had touched the Old Ones enough to change their judgement.

Now they were being tested this time. She and her Followers faced them, an unseen light from about accenting the head ridges and the severe brows of the Old Ones. They would not fail. They had already harmed these Others with their ignorance. She still felt the depth of the injury she had done to the Smooth-Headed One. That recent hurt strengthened the resolve of all three of them to stand before the Old Ones' judgement now. They would not chose one of these Others to die for them, no matter what punishment the Old Ones tested them with.

Nothing happened.

The Old Ones looked at each other and exchanged low sounds. Her Dearest-Most Follower wavered uncertainly and she reassured her. But inwardly she questioned herself. Had she misread the test? The Others had come to their own decision to reject the Old Ones; they had seen a darker ending to the Old Ones' test. Had they been right? Had she been wrong? Again?

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Lieutenant Commander LaForge reached for his communicator to check the time. They had searched all the abandoned structures on Hilosk hours ago. Now they had teams of two occupying each one, waiting with tricorders in case the Vians stirred. LaForge, Zakarov and Worf stood watch in structure number 8; it had the most recent energy traces. This one occupied an orange and gray canyon with almost no plant life except for sparse, tall yellowed grass sprouting up between the rocks. The nearest Minaran settlement was over a thousand kilometers away. It was the middle of the day, but it was cool in the shadows of the dry canyon.

"Sir!" Zakarov called out from where he sat with his back to the inner wall of the building across from him. "We've got it!" LaForge stood.

"Worf!" he called out. The Klingon, who'd been scouting outside appeared in one of the doorways.

"We've got an energy trace." Zakarov walked rapidly toward him. Worf joined them.

"Source?" LaForge had his control box out. The passive sensor lights on it blinked.

"It's Vian," Zakarov announced with authority.

"_Enterprise_," Worf signalled.

"_Enterprise_ here," Data's voice answered.

"We have positive contact," Worf announced. "Commander LaForge is attempting to tap into the Vian signal."

On the Bridge, Data checked the sensor indicators on the armrest control of the command chair. The ship's computer was tied to the tricorder inputs from all the away teams. But the ship's sensors, which were primed and focused on the planet, still weren't reading anything unusual. The Vian signal had to be extremely tightly confined, Data noted, to be detectable only by a tricorder on the surface. "Confirmed. We are monitoring your location." Behind him, at the science station an ensign checked the status of the other away teams. No one else reported any contact.

LaForge locked his makeshift control on the Vian energy, his finger adjusted it precisely to match it. He cleared his mind, mentally running through a familiar biofeedback exercise. Just match his brain waves to what he wanted and that was it. His breathing slowed. Worf and Zakarov watched and waited. But nothing seemed to be happening. A blue activity indicator came alive on the bottom of the box.

They heard a rising whine, then an sproinging sound. Then there was a flash.

**

* * *

o o o End Part 13**


	14. Chapter 14

**LESSONS LEARNED**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

o o o Part 14**

Worf recovered first, leaping to his feet. He ran smack into a flickering yellow force field. He froze, his body contorted like a fly caught in a spider web. The Klingon struggled fiercely, but the force field only grew more powerful as his own strength maddeningly drained away.

"Don't fight it." Worf heard Zakarov's strained voice beside him. The science officer and Lieutenant Commander LaForge were just getting up, but they were likewise trapped. "It draws its strength directly from you," Zakarov finished.

Worf forced his arms down and he stood his ground. The pressure on his body lessened slightly. He'd read the reports on the Vian technology, that the only way to escape and attack was to deny his own energy to the force field that parasited from him. The Klingon stood in place, rigid. It was very difficult.

They had been transported to a black, featureless place. Strange objects were scattered near them on the black floor. The three Minarans stared at him fearfully. Worf ignored them. Their missing crew mates lay unmoving on a padded platform. Two moving, and living Vians stood beyond them.

Next to Worf, the force field was noticeably dimmer around Zakarov and dimmer still around LaForge. The engineer breathed slowly, ignoring the tingling force field that faded around him. He didn't look up, keeping his VISOR pointed at the control box in his hands. He activated the control link. The 'okay' light came on. Supposedly he was now tapping into the Vian power source. Now all he had to do was think the right thing.

"We are Vians," began one the aliens.

Geordi took a breath and cleared his mind.

Pain lanced through the engineer's head, viciously going through his temples at the contact points of his VISOR. The lights went out.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Picard felt something touching his head.

"Captain." It was Worf. He opened his eyes and saw blackness. He grimaced and moved his head. He could feel large fingers on his scalp. He raised his hand and found a wrist.

"Worf?"

"Captain." Releasing the Klingon, Picard sat up. He didn't feel the slightest bit sluggish or queasy. In fact, he felt rested. He just couldn't see anything.

"What happened?"

"We were attempting to tap into the Vian's energy source when we were captured. We believe Commander LaForge succeeded, but the results were...unexpected."

Picard's eyes spotted and focused on a few small colored points of light to his left and he realized they were the indicator lights on a tricorder. He could just make out the shape of Commander Riker's head a few centimeters from them. He heard Commander Riker move.

"Then it seems the Vian's energy source has failed them."

"Yes, sir," Worf responded. Next to him, Doctor Crusher and Deanna Troi were stirring.

"What happened?" Doctor Crusher asked in the darkness.

"The _Enterprise_ tried to rescue us. It looks like they've put the lights out in the process," Picard explained.

"Did the Vians injure you, Captain?" Worf's voice asked.

"No, it wasn't the Vians, it was the Minarans."

"The Minarans?" Worf questioned.

"Yes, they decided to heroically put us out of action, so they could stand up to whatever the Vians intended for us."

"Where are the Minarans?" Troi's voice asked.

"They're over here," a new voice replied. Picard recognized it as science officer Zakarov. He was apparently the one who'd been holding the tricorder next to Commander Riker. Picard couldn't see anything else. Like stars in the night the colored tricorder lights were bright enough by themselves, but useless for illumination.

"Where's Commander LaForge?" Picard asked.

"He's over where we arrived," Worf answered. "He was attempting to tap directly into the Vian control system. We were not able to revive him."

"Where?" Crusher demanded. The lights of her medical tricorder appeared as she activated it. Worf didn't answer her.

"Captain, there are Vians here as well."

"Where?"

"To my left, about ten meters away." Crusher was on the bench. A strand of her hair glinted in the light from her tricorder, but it wasn't enough to see where the Klingon's left was. "I have not heard them leave."

Picard nodded and then realized that Worf couldn't see the motion. "Keep listening, Mister Worf."

"Doctor, can you find Commander LaForge?"

She checked her tricorder and its scanner/locator. "Yes."

"Commander Riker, go with her." They got up from the bench, Riker taking out his own tricorder. He felt a hand at his side. The taller Minaran female had moved close to him again. She touched his arm and then reached out to Doctor Crusher.

"Yes," she responded to the Minaran's clear offer of help. "Thank you." They went forward, moving carefully as they got closer so as not step on LaForge before they found him. Crusher's toe nudged something and they all stopped and knelt. The doctor scanned the form they found on the floor and then with Riker's help turned him over. His body was stiff and rigid. Crusher felt up his chest and found him clutching a small, squarish device. She left it in his grip and probed upward to his face and removed his VISOR. The optical connectors at his temples blinked red in the darkness.

"It looks like a massive electric shock. It's amazing that his heart didn't stop." They heard a rustling. Crusher felt a soft, slender hand on hers; the Minaran. LaForge's optical connectors disappeared as her hands covered them. They waited, Doctor Crusher's attention devoted to the lighted readings on her medical tricorder.

LaForge moaned and moved. They heard the control box clatter on the floor.

"Ooooooh, who turned out the lights?" LaForge asked. Crusher and Riker helped him to sit up.

Crusher touched Laforge's arm, found his hand and placed his VISOR in it.

"Thanks." He lifted it to his face. Crusher saw a tiny blue spark.

"Aaaahhh." LaForge gasped.

"Geordi!" Crusher put her arm around his shoulders, steadying him. "What happened?" Riker asked in the darkness

The doctor checked her tricorder. "It looks like some kind of static charge. Damn, I should have checked. Wherever the initial shock came from, it went right through his VISOR."

"It's okay," LaForge gasped, trying to recover. Crusher hand touched his arm. He felt downward; he'd dropped his VISOR in his lap.

"Don't put it on yet. Get your strength back first," she warned him, her hand tightening on his arm.

LaForge nodded, still breathing heavily. A hand touched the back of his neck and the pain faded almost instantly. Behind him the Minaran exhaled audibly, as if she were exhaling his pain as well.

"Thanks," LaForge said, not sure who he was thanking. He raised the VISOR to his face again, this time Crusher followed the motion with her tricorder, their lights glinting off the metal curves and vertical lines of the VISOR. But nothing happened this time. The VISOR clicked into place. LaForge felt nothing more than the usual pain he experienced when he put it on. The hand from behind him touched the back of his head and the pain that he'd become so accustomed to for years lessened miraculously. LaForge sat up straight, feeling suddenly energized.

"Wow." The engineer looked around to find out who his benefactor was, breaking the physical contact.

Behind him, the Minaran trembled. No one could see it, but what had happened had shown up on Crusher's medical tricorder. The doctor laid it aside, reached out and found the Minaran's hands, to keep her from touching LaForge again.

"No," she said gently. "You can't do everything." Crusher couldn't see the Minaran's expression, but the trembling of her hands quieted. LaForge looked on, not sure what to say. The pain from his VISOR had returned, but somehow it didn't seem to have the same a fierce edge to it. Then he looked around him.

"Hey." LaForge stood. They were in an enormous cavern, apparently artificial; it's dimensions were far too regular to be natural. Nearby stood a collection of objects, Worf and Zakarov and the others. And there were two aliens standing together beyond them.

But all the wavelengths that LaForge could see in that vast cavern were the long infrared and below on the electromagnetic spectrum. None of the shorter wavelengths were present at all. He looked at his companions. Crusher, Riker and the Minaran were staring sightlessly in his direction.

"I guess I must have brought the house down," he said jokingly. Riker half smiled as they all stood up.

"I take it you can see?"

"Yes, sir. What there is to look at."

"Where are the Vians?"

Geordi looked toward the two aliens. "They're not moving or doing anything. They're just standing there, about..." he paused to check the distance, the resolution for his artificial vision wasn't nearly as good on just infrared as it was in normal room lighting. "...ten or twelve meters from everyone else." He turned back to Riker, who nodded.

"Lead on, then."

LaForge reached out to Crusher and Riker. The doctor touched his left hand, his arm and then she latched onto his upper arm just above the elbow. The Minaran attached herself to Crusher's free arm. The Minaran seemed to be the least affected by the darkness. Riker and Crusher stared aimlessly outward unless there was some kind of sound or the tiny lights from the tricorder for them to look toward. But the Minaran always looked at someone, as if she knew where they were, even if she couldn't see them. LaForge wondered if her empathy gave her some kind of spatial acuity that at least allowed her to locate people.

Riker laid his hand on the engineer's shoulder. LaForge knew from personal experience that it was much too easy to lose the person you were trying to follow that way, so he got the commander to switch his grip to his arm like the doctor. Carefully, with a minimum of people stepping on each other, they made their way back to the others.

"Then you think it was your VISOR that caused the Vians' power overload?" Picard asked after they'd returned to the others and had a chance to confer.

"It's the only thing I can think of, sir. I put in interlocks that would prevent the input from my VISOR from getting into the control mechanisms. But it looks like all the failsafes have been over-ridden." Zakarov concurred. He held up the control box and his tricorder. Riker, Crusher and LaForge also had their tricorders activated solely for the minuscule amount of light they provided. Worf had his phaser out and pointed in the general direction of the Vians, who stayed motionless, not even acknowledging their presence, during their conference. But the Klingon was also using the indicator lights on the weapon for light, just as the others used their tricorders. It made for an odd conference, voices speaking out of the blackness around a circle of colored indicator lights.

"The Vians," Riker concluded. "They must've been monitoring you. Letting you get so far, before they sprang their trap. It looks like they got more than they were expecting." Picard agreed. The Vians had used similarly deceptive tactics nearly a hundred years ago.

"Well, I think it's about time we spoke to them about it." The others heard Picard move, a rustling of pulled fabric as he straightened his uniform tunic. "Mr. LaForge, if you would lead the way."

Once again, they went through the logistics of leading the blind. LaForge offered his arms to the captain and Counselor Troi, who would speak with the Vians. The others were left to sort themselves out to either latch onto Troi or Picard. As a group, they went to the Vians. LaForge stopped a meter away from them. The Vians seemed to ignore them, though it was impossible for them to have not heard that many people shuffling toward them.

The Vians arrogantly stood their ground as Picard released his hold on the engineer's arm and made his introductions. To LaForge, Picard seemed the most affected by the darkness. He spoke with the same authority as he always did, but it seemed vastly less effective when he was addressing the space just to the left of the Vians. But since no one else could see it, LaForge didn't see any point in correcting him.

"What right have you to come here?" the Vian on the left finally asked in response to Picard's accusations about the liberties the Vians had taken with them.

"_You_ brought us here."

"We did not bring you to this planet," the one on the right replied calmly. They didn't look at Picard as they spoke to him; they couldn't see in the darkness any more than the captain. But LaForge had the feeling that the Vians wouldn't deign to look at them even as they could see.

"But one of _you_ took the Minarans off it," Picard retorted. The Vians' faces hardened. The two were very similar to each other, both wearing the same kind of floor length robes, both nearly as tall as Commander Riker with high foreheads, vertically ridged up from the temples. They looked exactly like the Vians in the Starfleet records. LaForge wondered if all Vians looked the same. Were there any short or fat Vians?

The Vians' long silence told Picard that he'd scored an advantage and he pursued it.

"It wasn't intentional, was it? One of you had decided that the Minarans should have contact with the rest of the galaxy and took the initiative by himself." The Vians ignored the captain's speculation, which told Picard that he was at least close to the truth. LaForge wondered how many Vians there were. All that had ever been seen were a few isolated individuals and artifacts. Didn't they have cities? A civilization? How could they support their technology without them?

"If you are to come to this planet, we must determine your worthiness."

"Who are you to determine our worthiness?" Picard demanded. Somebody jostled him and the captain turned. LaForge saw the taller female Minaran slip past the captain to the Vians. She touched the one on the left, and then she embraced him. The Vian was certainly surprised. His mouth opened, eyes widened.

"Whoa."

"What?" Picard questioned LaForge's exclamation. The Vian on the right didn't know what was going on either. He reached for his companion and his bony fingers touched the skin of the Minarans upper arm. He withdrew quickly.

"Uh," Geordi paused, not sure just how to describe what was going on. "The Minaran is giving him a...welcome hug." Picard didn't reply. It had been bad enough having to speak to these Vians in pitch blackness, and now this. Of course, the Minaran had more reason than he to 'speak' with the Vians, but he would have appreciated it if she had waited until they had were in a more suitable location.

"Damn," he muttered. There wasn't much he could do but stand there. There wasn't even anything to look at except for the tiny indicator light of the tricorders his people were holding. And Worf's phaser. He'd forgotten about that. "Put that away, Mr. Worf," he ordered, annoyed.

"Yes, sir." He heard the Klingon holster the weapon after a short pause.

LaForge watched. The Minarans didn't move for a long time, and when she did she quickly transferred her hug to the other Vian, who was as surprised as the first one. LaForge wondered what kind of maintenance people these Vians had. The lights must have been out for over an hour, but there had been no indication that anyone was working on the problem. He couldn't imagine that he'd caused _that_ much damage. It seemed more likely that the Vians were far too overconfident in their own technology and just weren't prepared for emergencies.

"I sense..." Troi, like the other two Minarans had been facing toward the Vians. Like the Minarans, she also appeared to have some instinct for where to look for people, even if she couldn't see them, so she seemed less blind in the darkness. Picard almost pounced on her at the sound of her voice. "...disappointment."

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

The tunnel climbed for a long way, twisting and turning, but always it headed upward. But they were all fit, so no one was tired. She clasped the arm of the Darkest-Most-Eyes One, who followed the Smooth-Headed One. The Machine-Eyes One led them all. The strange device that substituted for his empty eyes let him see in the blackness around them. But it inflicted great pain upon him in return for this. It disturbed her greatly that she had not even realized that this One had made such an unhealthy bargain until she touched him. How could she have missed it? What else had she missed, not just with these Others, but with those she knew among her own people?

She stumbled. The floor was getting rougher, like that of a natural cave. Their pace slowed. The Others warned each other with their sounds and she left herself open to the vibrations from the others ahead of her to know when they tripped so she could be wary of the unevenness of the path.

She had made so many mistakes in the past few days, mistakes that she would not have imagined were within her before. She masked the self-doubt within her. But now, that capacity to hold things within her, seemed to be a mistake, too. If she could hide her thoughts from others, was she not capable of hiding them from herself? Was that not the source of so many of her mistakes of late? And how many had she made in the past and never realized it?

Behind her, she felt the alarm of her Dearest-Most Follower. The self-doubt frightened her. Her Yearning-Most Follower felt concerned, but not surprised by her thoughts. Had he known that she would falter? But his thoughts were occupied by the proximity of the Violent One who trailed the group with the Hair-Faced One. They had all avoided the Violent One. His thoughts, his mere physical appearance were those of a vicious predator. His very presence filled them with a desire to flee, lest he find a reason to attack them. But he never had. Now she realized that he wouldn't. In her own mind she had oversimplified the complexity of the Violent One's killer instinct, and because it had offended her, she hadn't bothered to look for more, even after she'd seen the Violent One's small, curious offspring. Another mistake.

She saw gray and realized that she could see something other than the tiny colored lights on the instruments the Others carried. The tunnel was growing lighter with distant daylight.

The Old Ones had been her biggest mistake. She'd always assumed them to be wise. They certainly were painted to be so in the legends. But, no. They judged. That was all. They were as cold and inflexible as the Old One that her Dearest-Most Follower had befriended. She had thought that his rigidity of thought had been due to his extreme age. That happened to many people as the years passed. But, no. That was the way of the Old Ones. They looked for purity of heart in others, not in themselves.

The Old Ones had understood enough to let them go. She didn't think that they had passed the Old Ones' tests; the tests had merely been cancelled. In the end, the tests were valueless unless the Old Ones themselves learned from them. And she wasn't sure they had.

At last the opening of the tunnel appeared and they soon emerged. They found themselves at the bottom of a deep green, overgrown and muddy ravine. A cloud of insects buzzed away, annoyed by their approach. The Smooth-Headed One and the Hair-Faced One tapped the badges on their chests and the voices from other places answered. They'd been doing that since before they'd emerged into the light in the cave. The voices told them where to go and they led the way up a dirt path to the top of a rocky hill of dried and aged plants.

In the distance, they could see Their City. A road that led there wound past the base of their hill.

Her Dearest-Most Follower hugged herself with joy. She had wanted this for so long. But her Yearning-Most Follower was sad, and so was she to a lesser degree. An end had come to their adventure.

They faced the Others and it was clear that the sounds they made were of parting. She listened to the impersonal, meaningless sounds. She could not understand their individual meanings and now there was no time to learn. There were tears in her Yearning-Most Follower's eyes.

She stepped forward and placed her hand on the Smooth-Headed One's chest. He looked back at her calmly, not objecting. Then she hugged him. He didn't like it. She pulled away, her hands resting on his arms. She stared into his green-gray eyes. He made a noise at her. It sounded final, but not unkind. She accepted it.

Then she turned to the Hair-Faced one and he stepped toward her. She grasped his neck, pulled him to her and kissed him passionately, the way she remembered that he liked. He still liked it. Then she released him. A sense of amusement rippled through the Others who watched.

They stood away from them and made noises to the voices in another place. They glittered and glowed. Then the white-blue sparkles faded and were gone. She passed her hands through the places where they'd been, but there was nothing left but air.

**

* * *

o o o End Part 14**


	15. Chapter 15

**LESSONS LEARNED**

by ardavenport

**

* * *

o o o Part 15**

"Come," Picard answered the door chime, not looking up from the screen at his desk.

Doctor Crusher entered his quarters.

"Yes, Doctor?" He didn't hear an answer. After an appreciable silence he looked up. She leaned against his desk, looking at him. He sat back.

"Oh." He clicked off the screen and the glowing yellow text of his report to Starfleet about why the _Enterprise_ had diverted to Hilosk.

"Oh," she repeated.

He turned his chair to her and tugged his uniform red and black tunic into place. The Minarans were gone, left lightyears behind on Hilosk. Their empathy was just an unpleasant memory, an inconvenience to him. But the aftereffect of it remained.

She was looking at him with all the feeling that she might have bestowed upon a blood sample.

"Do you want to be alone?" she asked.

He stayed silent for a long time. She waited patiently for his answer.

"No."

He got up, swiftly gliding up out of his chair. She watched him as he walked around the desk to her.

"Beverly, I've been thinking especially about what happened today, and I think that perhaps we've made a mistake."

No reaction. She just coolly frowned back at him. He momentarily thought that they should go sit on the sofa instead of standing in the middle of the room, but he reconsidered. He was trying to, as gently as possible, distance himself from her.

"I know how this must sound. I'm the one who wanted to explore our relationship." He took her hand. It lay limply in his.

"I see." Cold, emotionless, and subtlely hostile.

"Yes," he plowed on. "I have always believed that becoming involved with anyone under my command to be an unwise proposition. And after what happened today..."

"And just what did happen today?" she challenged him when he paused.

"We started arguing about our personal feeling in the middle of a crisis," he responded harshly, not in the mood for games.

"And now you just want to end it here."

"No, I don't, and don't put words in my mouth. But, I think that we do need time to think about our feelings after all." He softened his tone to almost an apology. "I value your friendship, and I don't want to lose that."

She tilted her head as if she didn't believe him. "I see."

"No, you don't see," he said back, now impatient with her attitude. "We were arguing about our own personal problems down there."

"We have one argument and that's it?"

"We didn't just have an argument, Beverly. We were abducted from the ship, and being held prisoner. It wasn't just inappropriate for us to start something like that there; it was dangerous."

"_I_ didn't bring it up. _You_ did. I wasn't even thinking about it. But you obviously couldn't keep you're mind off of it."

"Beverly, don't you see what happened? What's happening now? We're fighting.'

"Yes." She jerked her hand away from him. "People fight. It happens. But you don't just drop everything as soon as you have an argument."

"What if it 'happens' at a more critical moment. Affects our judgement, so that one us gets killed?"

"You coward," she said contemptuously. She thought of him on Kesprit, beyond the reach of their pursuers after she'd pushed him through the temporary hole she'd made in the force field that separated her. _I love you_, she'd thought to him when it looked as if she might never get another chance to say it, or feel it from him. But the danger to them had melted away; they'd been sent back to the _Enterprise_ by their captors.

His expression darkened. "You asked me," she went on. "And I finally said yes. And now a day later, you've changed your mind, just because you might get hurt."

"Both of us-" He reached out to touch her but she slapped his hand away.

"No, you're not thinking about both of us, Jean-Luc. You're thinking about yourself. Is this the excuse you always use when you think you might be getting too close to somebody? Is that why Commander Darren left? Have you ever been able to stay with a relationship long enough to really know what it's like?"

His jaw tightened, his temper rising, stinging from her accusations. "Whether you believe me or not-"

"I don't!" She cut him off again. "There isn't anything sacred about you that makes it hurt any more if somebody dies." Her voice strained with emotion. "I wore Jack's old clothes for months after he was killed. And I had to raise Wesley by myself. So don't tell _me_ that you couldn't bear to get close to anybody because something _might_ happen."

His face froze; his fury instantly drained away.

She just stood there crying in front of him, her gaze looking down toward his knees. _You're not going get away with this. If you want to end it, fine. But you aren't going to run away from it._

His feet moved. Now she stared down at the red front of his tunic, the black material on his shoulders, his collar at his neck. She put her arms over his shoulders. His arms hugged her waist. _Thank you._

She wanted it to work between them. She hadn't realized how much she wanted it until that moment. She kept sobbing on his shoulder; she was still furious with him. He seemed to think that if things couldn't be perfect between them, then automatically the relationship would be too catastrophic to maintain. _You're in for a big surprise, Jean-Luc._

She could feel his arms stiffly holding her, his hands unmoving, his body rigidly pressed next to hers. He didn't know what to do. He was just standing there. She laid her cheek on his neck, her nose brushing the short, gray hair behind his ear. He smelled nice.

She wiped her nose on the back of her hand and pulled back away from him, just enough so she was facing him.

"Jean-Luc, maybe you are right." She looked down at the opening of his collar with its four captain's pips. "Maybe it isn't such a good idea for us to be...too close. There'll be problems. We'll get in each other's way. You'll always be worried about it affecting your command, or how it looks to everyone else. I don't know what I'll do the next time you're captured by Cardassians...or worse." She looked up, directly at him. "You won't look the same the next time you end up on my operating table."

Beverly Crusher couldn't think of a time when Jean-Luc Picard had looked more lost. He stared intensely back at her. Shock, hurt, need, she couldn't pin down what she saw on his face. She still clasped him about the shoulders and she lifted her hands to caress the back of his head. The fingertips of one hand wandered to his temple and lightly stroked his skin. "But I think that we both want someone to be with. To be close to." She spoke very softly, almost a whisper and she very, very slowly leaned closer to him until their foreheads touched. His eyes stayed fixed on her.

"It's not easy sometimes. You get used to being on your own; it's so hard; you have to worry about how anything you do might affect that other person. It doesn't always work out. There are a whole lot of things that can go wrong." She smiled sadly, contemplating the possibilities. "But when you're close, really close to someone, however long it lasts, there isn't _anything_ that can replace it. But you'll never know how it might work out if you don't try." Was that a tear in his eye, she wondered?

He kissed her. Long and slow, his kiss explored her lips. His arms tightened around her, his large hands sliding up her back. Their lips parted.

"You want to give it another try?" she murmured.

His gray-green eyes, his lips, his whole face smiled back at her. And those were tears. Their lips met again.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Will Riker found Deanna Troi in Ten Forward. There was hardly anyone else there at that hour. He slid into the booth next to her. No host came to their table to take his order. It was late enough; if he wanted anything, he would have to go to the bar for it. He didn't get up.

"Looks pretty good," he commented about the fudge brownie cake in front of her.

"Mmm," she agreed and took another small bite. He sat next to her and quietly watched. She privately wished that he'd sit a little closer. A sly smile curled her lips. "Care for a bite?" She held up a gooey bit of chocolate for him.

He looked back warily and then slowly leaned forward and took the treat. His lips carefully closed around it, almost caressing the end of her spoon. He licked a sticky, little brown crumb away before it could fall and become trapped in his beard.

"You look thoughtful tonight," he finally said after she took several more minutes to take one more contemplative bite of desert. She nodded.

"Anything you'd like to share?" he asked.

She half shrugged and toyed with her fudge brownie. He hadn't directly asked about what had been going on between Captain Picard and Doctor Crusher on Hilosk, but she suspected that he had his own theories about it. Somewhere else on the ship, she knew that two friends were together and she was glad for it. She took another small bite and savored the smooth texture of the fudge.

Riker didn't press for an answer from her. He had a feeling that she already knew what he was thinking about. The rumor around Sickbay was that Doctor Crusher had been caught late last night in Captain Picard's quarters. And the talk in Sickbay was already spawning speculation around the ship. The commander wouldn't have given this idle chatter a second thought, but there had been quite a few rumors about them since the mission to Kesprit. And after what had happened on Hilosk, he felt an impulse to seek out a reliable source. Troi's contemplative mood at this late hour seemed to be a partial answer. He'd gotten the other piece of his answer when he'd checked with the ship's computer before coming to Ten Forward. Doctor Crusher was is Captain Picard's quarters.

"Are you going to have something, or just sit there?" Troi finally asked.

Riker smiled at her, put his elbow on the lighted table top and propped his chin up. "I just came to admire the view." He had his back to the room's wide view ports.

Troi hid her smile with another bite. They'd been very close in the past, and they still were in a special way. She could project her thoughts to him if she concentrated. It seemed as if she hadn't done that in a very, very long time.

Riker opened his mouth to say something.

Troi put another fudge brownie morsel in it.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

Picard awoke unsure of what had awakened him. He heard a familiar sigh and felt warm skin next to him under the blanket. He looked up at a shadowy face. He'd fallen asleep.

"Hi." Crusher's head descended and he felt her lips touch his forehead. He tilted his head back and her kisses wandered down his cheek until their lips found each other. She settled down next to him and he put his arm over her shoulders.

He thought about that lifetime given to him by Kataan probe. The memories had a strange, dream-like quality unlike the recollections of his own life. But the feelings from the experience were just as strong as any he'd ever had. And he remembered what it was like to sleep with another person, not just for physical pleasure, but to share a life with. And now he felt that way again. And it worried him.

_What will I do if...?_

But what was he thinking? That he couldn't let himself become involved because she might be placed in danger as if they hadn't both been in danger of their lives before? That had been what he'd done not too long ago with Nella Darren. They'd parted company, sadly, but at the time it had seemed to both of them that ending things between them was the only sensible thing to do.

What should he do now? Cower over the possibility of a hurt that Beverly Crusher had already endured?

"Thank-you." he said in a low, rough voice.

"Hmm?"

"For telling me off. I suppose I deserved that."

She didn't contradict him. Her hand stroked the hair on his chest.

"I...I've always been very conscious of the hazards of being in Starfleet and how they might affect a relationship. And that the only safe way to deal with them was to avoid them altogether. It will be very hard for me to see you put in danger. I feel as if...I don't know if I could bear to see that."

"Do you promise not to die in my Sickbay?" He didn't answer. _Look at who I'm talking to._

She exhaled, her breath tickling his neck. They'd both been in danger in the line of duty before, together and separately. His concern for her safety now seemed shallow and selfish. She knew the emotional risks far better than he could imagine. He reached over with his free arm and touched her hair. He could hardly tell it was red at all in faint blue glow from the blue lighting panels above. The stars outside provided no appreciable illumination. Suddenly fascinated by the miracle that there was another person lying there with him, he smoothed the hair at the top of her head.

"Is that why Nella Darren left?"

He tensed and then resumed his exploration of the top of her head.

"Yes."

"Weren't you planning on going to Starbase 314?" Lieutenant Commander Darren had gone on to head the Stellar Physics Section there. Stellar cartographers of her caliber were in great demand in Starfleet and she had been given a free hand and a liberal authority to gather a first class science team there. She was reputedly working with the Daystrom Institute on her various projects.

"I, uh, mentioned that in my last communication to her. She...mentioned back that she was seeing someone."

He felt another long breath touch his neck, like a sigh. She nudged a little closer to him and the movement struck him a being a bit possessive. He hugged her shoulders a little closer and nuzzled her hair. It smelled of a faint aroma of lilacs, mixed with a Sickbay antiseptic.

"He plays the saxophone," Picard continued. "I didn't even know she played jazz," he added to himself.

He was reminded of how little he and Nella Darren had known about each other. That seemed to him like a terrible mistake, an irretrievably missed opportunity. Would he make the same mistake again? He already knew so much about Beverly Crusher. What didn't he know?

"You don't play jazz, do you?"

"I don't play anything, Jean-Luc."

"But...you dance it, don't you?"

She opened her eyes. _What?_ They were lying in bed in an intimate embrace. An hour ago they'd been making love for the first time, and now he was asking her about tap dancing. She lifted her head and looked at him in the gloom.

"What?"

"Well, I was just thinking, that seeing how things have changed between us, that we should talk about some things, get to know each other better."

"Jean-Luc, we've known each other for twenty years. What don't we know about each other?"

He brushed her hair back from her face. His other hand caressed her breast. "We didn't know some rather important things a few hours ago," he responded solemnly. She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

"Why don't we discuss it then?" She kissed him, deeply, passionately. She repositioned herself so that she lay partially on top of him. He gasped, breaking their tongue-lock.

"Let's talk," she suggested.

**

* * *

ooo *_* ooo *_* ooo**

* * *

The darkness was light. Through the windows of the rooms she shared with her Followers the city lights came in. Their return had been celebrated late by the large circle of Friends they shared and by many others. Finally the gathering had broken up and most had gone to their beds. The excitement and stirrings in the city had faded to a low, euphoric buzz.

She sat in a reclining chair, facing outward, the lighted city visible though the doorway of the balcony. She silently remembered the Others and their large ship in the stars and wondered if she could see it from her home if it still hung above her world. She was sure that the Others were far, far away by now.

A clashing, discordant sound came through the open door to the outside. She sat up. The sound came again and again. A hazy yellow-green light glowed from below. She heard her Dearest-Most Follower and her Yearning-Most Follower stir in the next room.

Rising, she went to the balcony. Her gaze fell down to the courtyard, down to the multitude of Old Ones standing there. She gasped. Others in their lodging were looking. Surprised faces appeared in the windows and balconies of the other buildings.

The Old Ones looked up at _her_ as if they knew they lacked something that she, and her people could show them. They had returned. Her Dearest-Most Follower and her Yearning-Most Follower came to her and stood behind her staring down at the miracle in the green courtyard, now glowing with the Old Ones' light.

No, she realized. They were not returning, for the Old Ones had never truly arrived. Before now.

Hastily, she and her Followers left the balcony, to go down to the courtyard to greet the Old Ones.

**

* * *

_ _ _ END _ _ _**

**

* * *

Note:** This story was written by me and first printed (under the name 'Anne Davenport') in 1994, by Farpoint Press as a separate fan novel back in the hard-copy and snail-mail days of fan-fiction, when the internet was just taking off.

* * *

Original Foreward:

This story was originally finished around the beginning of 1993. I sent it off to be looked at by the _Beyond Farpoint_ editors. Then the episode "Lessons" came out. I did some significant re-writes. Discussion emerged about printing this story as a separate novel over the summer. I finished the art in the latter part of 1993. Then the episode "Attached" came out. More re-writes. As of the end of 1993, I've heard rumors of an upcoming episode having Beverly Crusher going back to her home planet for her grandmother's funeral; who **knows** what will happen with Jean-Luc in that one! I'm going to see this thing in print before something **else** happens. Remember all those _Enterprise_es we saw popping up every-which-where in "Parallels"? Well, this is one of those _Enterprise_es . . .

**

* * *

Disclaimer:** All Trek characters and the universe belong to Paramount; I'm just playing in that sandbox.


End file.
